Ever wished there was an easy way to convert a picture into a needlepoint or cross stitch chart?
Instructables recently posted one, showing how to make a Photoshop graphed pattern.
The tutorial goes through the process step by step, beginning by suggesting that you reduce the resolution and number of colors. This is an important step because too many colors or too detailed a drawing can make the finished graph (and resulting needlepoint) look like mush.
The process continues with lots of illustrations, first turning the color image into a pixelated one and then replacing each color with a symbol.
The end result is a chart, looking like your typical cross stitch chart, which can be used for stitching.
I’m not the best person at using Photoshop, but these clear instructions looked simple enough that I can do it.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Thanks for posting that link, Janet! This is a great tutorial for doing things the “top down” way — that is, starting with a full-resolution design and progressively reducing it until it’s simple enough to stitch.
Personally (and this is very much a matter of personal taste, I think), I prefer going the “bottom up” way, using a pixel-art program like Pixen (for the mac) or GraphicsGale (for windows). I like to start with a document that’s the same number of pixels wide as the thread count of the finished canvas, then build up the design using a pencil tool, zoomed WAY in.
Here’s a simple “Twinchy” I did this way yesterday:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tikaro/3148075270
For me, the hard part isn’t so much making the art in the computer (I’m a computer guy) so much as transferring the design to the canvas. I’ve been marking both the pattern and the canvas with a grid of dots, then marking the canvas by hand with a pigma pen. Suggestions for improving this process would be more than welcome! 🙂
Nice link thank you for sharing this with us.
This link is what i was looking for i had no problem following it and did my work perfectly. Cheers