Converting a Photo to a Cross-Stitch Pattern

Open Import → From Photo… from the menu bar, then drag and drop your photo or click to browse. Supported formats are JPEG, PNG, and WebP, up to 5 MB.

Set the pattern width and height in stitches independently — the default is 80×80. The photo is fit inside those dimensions while keeping its proportions; empty cells are added as padding where needed. Use the 🔗 lock button to keep width and height locked to the photo's aspect ratio so it isn't stretched.

Choose how many DMC thread colors to reduce the photo to: 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 100. Fewer colors means a simpler, faster stitch; more colors preserves finer detail and gradients. There's no wrong answer — you can re-generate with a different count at any time.

A few things that consistently make the automatic conversion look better:

• Crop tightly to your subject before uploading if the background is busy.
• Good contrast between the subject and background converts more cleanly than a low-contrast photo.
• Don't chase photo-realism — cross-stitch has always been a translation, not a copy. A slightly stylized result usually stitches up better than a maximally detailed one.
• If the automatic result has scattered single stray stitches, the editor's pencil and fill tools clean those up in seconds — see Drawing Tools.