A chart from a photograph
Upload an image and get a chart in real threads, with symbols and a legend.
How it works
The image is scaled down to the width you ask for in stitches, its colours are grouped, and each group is matched to a thread the brand actually sells. It usually takes a few seconds.
The ceilings are 120 000 stitches and 60 colours. A face 60 stitches wide stays a face 60 stitches wide – for a portrait, start at 150.
The chart lands in your account, so this one needs you signed in. Log in
What comes out, and what does not
Width decides almost everything. A chart 60 stitches wide is a picture 60 dots wide: a face on it becomes a smudge, whatever threads are chosen for it. For a portrait start at 150 stitches; a silhouette, an animal close up or a simple landscape is fine at 80–120. You do not need to work out the height – it follows the photograph’s own proportions.
Large and contrasty works best: one object, a silhouette against a light background, an animal’s face, a sunset. Fine text, thin branches, netting, a crowd – anything that depends on detail smaller than a single stitch – works worst: on fabric those places turn to mush, and the culprit is the size of the square rather than the program.
More colours is not better. Thirty threads is thirty skeins, thirty fastenings and thirty rounds of “now where did I put 3823”. Twelve to twenty often give the same picture and are far pleasanter to stitch. That is what the preview is for: look at the same photograph in 12, 20 and 30 colours before working out the whole chart.
Treat the result as a good draft rather than a finished chart. Open it in the editor and spend five minutes on it: clear the single stitches, tidy the background, fold two neighbouring shades into one. That edit is the difference between a chart you can stitch and one you want to.
The photograph has to be yours, or one you are allowed to use. A chart made from somebody else’s picture is a derivative work: for yourself that is usually nobody’s question, but publishing it in the gallery or selling it without the rights is not on.
Common questions
- What does it cost, and do I need an account?
- The tool is free. An account is needed because a chart is a file that has to live somewhere, and it lives in yours. Previewing and changing your mind costs nothing and leaves nothing in your account.
- What happens to my photograph?
- The photograph is deleted as soon as the chart is worked out, or within the hour if you do not finish the preview. We show it to nobody.
- Where do I find the chart afterwards?
- Under “Charts” in your account. It is private – only you see it until you decide otherwise – and it opens in the editor like any other.
- Why is the preview not exactly the final chart?
- The preview is worked out the same way but at a smaller width, which is why it is ready in a second rather than several. At the full width the program sees more pixels and a thread or two may come out different. What the preview does show honestly is the overall impression and the answer to “how many colours is enough”.
- Can I use a photograph from the internet?
- For yourself, usually – and that is your risk. For the gallery, and certainly for sale, only if the rights to the picture are yours or it is licensed for that: the chart counts as a work derived from the photograph.