How big can a resize a pattern tile for wallpaper?

[Karina]

Hi! 

I made repeat pattern tiles in Affinity Photo, and want to make wallpaper out of them. Could anyone tell me how big I can resize these tiles, so I know how big I can make the pattern tiles in the wallpaper? The pattern tiles are: 

3000 x 3000 pixels 300 dpi

5000 x 5000 pixels 600 dpi

Thank you very much! 

[firstdefence]

Considering displays output to approx 72dpi and the average desktop screen size is probably 1080p (1920 x 1080) and the average laptop screen size is 1366 x 768 how big do you want to go?

[Karina]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

Considering displays output to approx 72dpi and the average desktop screen size is probably 1080p (1920 x 1080) and the average laptop screen size is 1366 x 768 how big do you want to go?

Well, I am talking about actual paper wallpaper to cover a wall, the wallpaper would probably measure 280 cm. high and say 300 cm. wide, but this can vary. 

[firstdefence]

8 minutes ago, Karina said:

Well, I am talking about actual paper wallpaper to cover a wall, the wallpaper would probably measure 280 cm. high and say 300 cm. wide, but this can vary. 

To give you an idea, there is a company called Spoonflower and their FAQ gives this information regarding design sizes etc...

https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/articles/204444610-How-big-should-my-image-be-

https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/sections/200793490-Designing-Uploading

[firstdefence]

This is a neat blog on making wallpaper patterns that will burn your retina's lol!

https://www.addicted2decorating.com/create-your-own-wallpaper-pattern.html

[Karina]

8 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

This is a neat blog on making wallpaper patterns that will burn your retina's lol!

https://www.addicted2decorating.com/create-your-own-wallpaper-pattern.html

Thanks a lot for your input, but I already made my own watercolour wallpaper designs like described in the article. Now I just need to know how big I can enlarge one pattern tile so it still looks good on a wall, so I can decide on what scale to print my wallpaper designs. 

Can you tell me how large I can enlarge a 3000 x 3000 pixel 300 dpi pattern tile so it still looks good on a wall? 

I have the same question for my 5000 x 5000 pixel 600 dpi design. 
 

Thanks a lot for your help!

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, Karina said:

Can you tell me how large I can enlarge a 3000 x 3000 pixel 300 dpi pattern tile so it still looks good on a wall? 

 

That will print out at 10 inches, 25 cm square. How big is the tile supposed to be on the wall? 

I think you could probably go to 20 inches square with the resolution being dropped down to 150 dpi. After all it is wallpaper, not a fine art print.

[Karina]

27 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

To give you an idea, there is a company called Spoonflower and their FAQ gives this information regarding design sizes etc...

https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/articles/204444610-How-big-should-my-image-be-

https://support.spoonflower.com/hc/en-us/sections/200793490-Designing-Uploading

Thanks a lot for this! 

[Karina]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

That will print out at 10 inches, 25 cm square. How big is the tile supposed to be on the wall? 

I think you could probably go to 20 inches square with the resolution being dropped down to 150 dpi. After all it is wallpaper, not a fine art print.

Thanks a lot! Does that mean I can enlarge my 5000 x 5000 pixel 600 dpi tile to 20.000 x 20.000 pixels 150 dpi if I wanted to? 
 

I am sometimes confused by the whole dpi thing, as some of my files with the same dpi and measurements look much crisper than others. 

[Old Bruce]

15 minutes ago, Karina said:

Thanks a lot! Does that mean I can enlarge my 5000 x 5000 pixel 600 dpi tile to 20.000 x 20.000 pixels 150 dpi if I wanted to? 

No.

The pixels are the pixels. DPI is Dots (pixels) Per Inch. 

5000 ÷ 600 = 8.333... inches

If I print at 300 DPI instead of 600 then the print will be 16.666... inches and 33.333... inches if printed at 150 DPI. The tile will still be 5000 x 5000 pixels in each example, the physical printed size of each pixel will be different.

[Karina]

Got it! Is the following correct? (math is not my strong point)

So I can PRINT the 3000 x 3000 pixels 300 dpi tile at approximately 50 cm. square 150 dpi. as wallpaper. 
 

And I can PRINT the 5000 x 5000 pixels 600 dpi tile at approximately 166 cm square with 150 dpi as wallpaper? 
 

Thank you for your time!

[Old Bruce]

 

32 minutes ago, Karina said:

So I can PRINT the 3000 x 3000 pixels 300 dpi tile at approximately 50 cm. square 150 dpi. as wallpaper. 

Yes

32 minutes ago, Karina said:

And I can PRINT the 5000 x 5000 pixels 600 dpi tile at approximately 166 cm square with 150 dpi as wallpaper? 

No, 5000 ÷ 150 = 33.333 inches and 33 inches = 84.66 cm

[Karina]

But does the dpi not factor in at all then? The 3000 x 3000 pixel tile has a dpi of 300, and the 5000 x 5000 pixel tile has a dpi of 600. That’s why I doubled the 33 inches. But this is not correct apparently? 

[Alfred]

57 minutes ago, Karina said:

So I can PRINT the 3000 x 3000 pixels 300 dpi tile at approximately 50 cm. square 150 dpi. as wallpaper.

Forget about 300 dpi if your chosen output setting is 150 dpi. As @Old Bruce said:

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

The pixels are the pixels.

 

4 minutes ago, Karina said:

But does the dpi not factor in at all then? The 3000 x 3000 pixel tile has a dpi of 300, and the 5000 x 5000 pixel tile has a dpi of 600. That’s why I doubled the 33 inches. But this is not correct apparently? 

No. The more loosely you pack the pixels on output, the bigger the printed result will be. So a 3000 px square tile would be 1 inch square if printed at 3000 dpi, 10 inches square if printed at 300 dpi, or 100 inches square if printed at 30 dpi. At 150 dpi the output size is 20 inches square, which (as you’ve stated) is about 50 cm square. If you were to print your 5000 px square at 600 dpi instead of 150 dpi, it would be smaller, not bigger.

 

57 minutes ago, Karina said:

And I can PRINT the 5000 x 5000 pixels 600 dpi tile at approximately 166 cm square with 150 dpi as wallpaper?

Again, forget about 600 dpi here. 5000 is two thirds more than the 3000 of the first example, so the output size at 150 dpi will be two thirds more than 50 cm. As @Old Bruce points out in his latest post, this is about 84.66 cm.

[Karina]

Thanks a lot! This really helps me out 👍👍👍
 

So if I understand correctly I just have to find out the requested dpi by the wallpaper printing company, and then I can calculate the maximum size I can enlarge my pattern tiles to by dividing the pixels by the dpi? 
 

Another question: it seems one of my repeat pattern wallpaper designs turns out to be quite a bit smaller than I was hoping. So I think I’ll just vectorise that pattern tile, so I can make the scale of the wallpaper design a lot bigger. Do you see any problems with that? (apart from huge files).  
 

Thanks a million for helping me out!

[Alfred]

31 minutes ago, Karina said:

So if I understand correctly I just have to find out the requested dpi by the wallpaper printing company, and then I can calculate the maximum size I can enlarge my pattern tiles to by dividing the pixels by the dpi?

That’s right. If you take the number of pixels in each direction and divide it by the number of dots per inch (or, more correctly, pixels per inch) you’ll get the printed size in inches. Multiply that by 2.54 to convert to centimetres, or by 25.4 to convert to millimetres.

 

35 minutes ago, Karina said:

Another question: it seems one of my repeat pattern wallpaper designs turns out to be quite a bit smaller than I was hoping. So I think I’ll just vectorise that pattern tile, so I can make the scale of the wallpaper design a lot bigger. Do you see any problems with that? (apart from huge files).

You’ll get a huge file if you scale up a bitmap/raster design, but if it’s all vector you won’t need to worry about the file size.

[Old Bruce]

@Karina What Alfred said, and best of luck.