Seamless pattern maker and checker
Turn a motif into a repeating pattern, or fix a texture whose edges do not match, then check it tiled and download a print-ready sheet. Free, no signup, and nothing is uploaded.
A seam you see on screen shows on fabric
A repeating pattern has one job: nobody should be able to find where one tile ends. When the edges do not match, the join prints as a line every few inches across a whole bolt of fabric, a sheet of wrapping paper or all the way round a tumbler. This tool checks for that, shows it repeated so you can see it, and fixes it.
Two ways in
- From a motif. Drop a picture with a transparent background and choose a grid, a half-drop or a scatter, the size, the spacing and the background. Motifs that hang over an edge wrap to the other side, so it is seamless by construction.
- From a texture. A photo of fabric, wood, stone or grass gets its seams moved to the middle and rebuilt from the rest of the picture, with the lighting evened out first so it does not stripe.
How to make one by hand, and why half-drop hides repeats better than a grid, is in how to make a seamless pattern from any image.
Questions
How do I know if my pattern is seamless?
Drop it in. The seam check compares each edge with the edge it meets when the picture is tiled, measured against how much neighbouring pixels differ inside the picture, and the preview shows it repeated. A seam that shows on screen will show on fabric, paper and tumblers too.
What is the difference between the two modes?
A motif to repeat is for a picture on a transparent background: a flower, a strawberry, a logo. It is arranged into a tile in a grid, a half-drop or a scatter, and anything hanging over one edge is drawn back in on the other, so it tiles perfectly. A texture to fix is for a photo of a surface, such as fabric, wood or grass, whose edges do not match; the seams are rebuilt from the rest of the picture.
What is a half-drop repeat?
Every other column of tiles is moved down by half a tile. It breaks up the obvious rows of a straight grid, which is why it is the usual repeat for fabric and wallpaper. A brick repeat does the same sideways, moving every other row by half a tile.
Why is there a stripe on every repeat even though the edges match?
Uneven lighting: a photo that is darker on one side joins a light edge to a dark one every time it repeats. “Even out lighting first” removes that fall-off before the seams are rebuilt.
Can I print it at a set size?
Yes. Set the sheet size and how wide one tile should be in inches, and it downloads a 300 dpi sheet of the pattern: for sublimation paper, fabric printing or a tumbler wrap.