Guides / Making your chart
The site's converter turns a photograph into a chart in real DMC thread colours, free and without an account. Here is how to set each step.
The converter reduces the picture to a grid of stitches, then replaces each colour with the nearest DMC thread, a reference you can buy in any shop. Everything is computed in your browser: without an account, your photo never leaves your computer. Open the converter in another tab to follow along; allow a minute for a first chart, a little more to fine-tune it.
Drop your photo into the frame, or pick it from your files. If you are torn between several pictures, the guide on which photo to choose helps you decide, and the one on preparing a picture shows the five minutes of editing that make the difference.
If the picture is lying on its side, as phone photos often are, use “Turn the picture” and pick the thumbnail that is the right way up.
This is the most important setting. It decides the level of detail, the size of the piece and the time it will take; the height follows the photo's proportions. The slider runs from 20 to 200 stitches, and the total number of stitches shows under the chart.
A few landmarks: 40 to 50 stitches for a small design, 70 to 100 for an animal, 120 and up for a portrait. For the size, divide by 5.5: 80 stitches wide is 14.5 cm on 14-count aida. The guide to choosing the size of a chart goes into these landmarks, and the fabric calculator does the sum for other fabrics.
Each thread is one colour in the key: a skein to buy, and one more change of needle. The slider runs from 2 to 35; between 8 and 15 threads suit most photos.
Fewer threads give a bolder, more graphic picture that is quicker to stitch. More threads keep the gradients, at the cost of single stitches of one colour inside another. Try two or three values: the chart redraws each time. The method for finding the right number is in the guide to reducing the number of colours.
Thread is more saturated than it looks on screen, and a faithful chart can seem dull beside the photo. The “Colour brightness” setting livens everything up, from Natural to Very vivid.
“Remove the background” cuts the subject out and leaves bare fabric around it; it works best on a plain background. “Outline the piece” adds a dark edge round the stitched area.
Stitching with another brand? Choose Anchor, Madeira or Cosmo under “Thread brand”. And to stitch with the threads you already own, “Use my own threads” limits the chart to the references you enter, or to those in your thread box if you have an account.
Tap a thread in the list: its stitches light up on the chart. The wheel beside it replaces it with another reference, chosen from the whole range, from a colour, or among the suggested alternatives. The link to the thread's page shows its neighbours and the palettes that go with it.
This helps with skin and skies, where the thread nearest in numbers is not always the truest to the eye. For pale skin, for instance, compare 948, 754 and 3770. To find the thread for one precise colour there is also the colour to DMC tool, and the guide to choosing your DMC colours helps keep the palette coherent.
A stray stitch that bothers you, an eye to redraw, an initial to add: “Edit by hand” opens the chart in the pattern maker, where you change it stitch by stitch with the same threads.
Before downloading, choose the layout: the counting grid, the legend under the chart, symbols on no thread, on the look-alikes or on all of them, a black-and-white version for the printer, and a backstitch outline if you want one. The guide to reading a chart explains these signs, and the one on backstitch how to stitch the outline. The file is a PNG image, free.
Print it as large as you can, over several sheets if needed: you will be reading it for hours. The legend is your shopping list, with each thread's stitch count; one skein covers about 1,500.
With an account you can also publish your chart in the gallery, and later the photo of the stitched piece among the finished pieces.