Cross Stitch Charts

[melligator.livejournal.com]

Hey guys!
So do any of you cross stitch? I ask because I decided to do some funky little pieces as Christmas presents this year (silly, rude captions and such) and wanting to add a picture to one, I started researching ways to make your own charts online. There were a couple of dead links (my favourite text generator by the way is at stitchpoint.com - really great) so I figured I could manage something, and found a pretty decent and easy way to get one out of Photoshop.

1. Find the picture you want, I needed a Stormtrooper head!



2. First you need to duplicate your base image as a new layer. Right click the background layer in your layer pallet and choose 'Duplicate Layer' like so:



You should now have two identical layers in the pallet:



3. With your copied layer still highlighted, go to the Filter menu and choose Filter Gallery:



4. Look for the Patchwork filter and click it:



5. On the right slide 'Square Size' over on up to 10, the grid will get bigger:



Click OK. Don't be worried that the image got very dilated, we're about to fix that!
Using the Square Size = 10 setting gave me a chart approx 33 tall by 30 wide, which is nice and compact for my project.

6. Back in the main screen find the Opacity slider on your layer pallet. This lets you make a layer more or less opaque, from not at all (100%) to completely transparent (0%). Make sure the copied layer is still highlighted and slide that bad boy down to about 75%:



Your original image should show through enough to see some detail once more, but your new chart should still be nice and visible. I printed this image and used a pen to mark the different colours and the outline to make sure it was going to work. Looks good! I'm going to stitch it tonight.

You can play with the Square Size for the patchwork filter to get varying amounts of detail, and with the opacity at the end to get it best for your personal preferences.