Fabric color - file vs display?

[nharveyart]

I've never purchased or offered fabric for sale here. I got a request through my website for a particular image to be enlarged and made available on a fat quarter for the buyer to use as a quilt applique It's a night scene design that uses negative space and transparent colors which ended up being quite tricky to enlarge to the requested degree and keep it smooth looking.

After all that work, I uploaded the .png, set a background using the same hex# as I'd used in Photoshop, but it all looks paler on the website. I even uploaded a 2nd version of the image where I'd duplicated it and merged the first with the second at 50% opacity to give it a boost. It's better, but not the same and doesn't look very good IMO.

I've purchased cards, magnets, mugs, etc. and the color always seemed true. So I'd like to know what to expect from fabric. Is it just showing badly on the website or does it really print paler? 

Here's what I mean. The first is my original version as it appears in Photoshop, the second is the version merging 2 layers of the .png to add an additional 50% density, as it appears on Zazzle when I make the product. It not only is paler, the colors look duller. This is not from enlarging the image on the product; I made the file to scale.

Thanks for reading.

[Sara_H]

@nharveyart 

I think you have to take in account that fabric prints differently than on cards, magnets, mugs as the production is different and what your artwork looks like in photoshop won't translate on to the mockups that are provided so you're not seeing the end result so to speak

The only way for you to be 100% happy with your artwork on fabric is to purchase a sample and see for yourself.

[nharveyart]

Thank you for your response.

Yes, I know there can be some difference. I was wondering what the typical difference was as viewed by those who have experience with how it tends to go with fabric. 

If it was for myself, sure, I'd purchase a swatch and see. But I'd like to offer a little more certainty to a customer.

[Sara_H]

@nharveyart am sure someone will come along who has bought a sample for themselves and can describe the "typical difference" but surely the only certainty that you can give to your customers is seeing it for yourself with your own eyes?

Hope you find your answer 🙂

[nharveyart]

(Hmm, thought I responded to this earlier, but I don't see it, so I'll try again.)

I do hope I can get some information from someone who has experience with fabric design and purchase. If it were for me, sure I'd order a swatch to try. But the customer only wants a fat quarter and I expect to earn less than $2 on the sale. I'm not going to spend on a swatch.

I could suggest they order one and I suppose I could make a sample image using slices of the different version to compare. But I don't know how they'd feel about spending almost half as as much for that as they would the final product.  I'm just trying to see what information I can get.

Thanks again for your effort to help.