How to Turn a Photo into a Bead Pattern

Turning a photo into a bead pattern is mostly a matter of making decisions in the right order: which picture, how big, how many colours, and what to fix by hand. Done in that order, a pattern that would otherwise look like a blur of mixed colours turns into something you can actually build. The steps below use the bead pattern generator, but the ideas apply to any tool.

Step 1: Choose a picture that survives the trip

A bead is a big pixel. A 29 × 29 pattern has 841 of them, so a photo has to be simple to stay recognisable. Look for:

• One clear subject — a face, a pet, a flower, a mascot — rather than a crowd or a landscape with many small things.
• Strong contrast between the subject and the background. A dark cat on a light sofa works; a grey cat on grey carpet does not.
• Plain or simple backgrounds. A sky, a wall or a single colour can be left empty or filled with one bead colour.
• Large shapes. Thin lines such as whiskers, hair strands and text turn into broken dots at bead size.

If your picture is wide and the subject sits in the middle, crop it in a photo editor first. A face that fills the frame needs far fewer beads than the same face in the middle of a wide photo.

Step 2: Decide the size

Every extra bead of width adds a column of height, so the number of beads grows with the square of the size. With standard 5 mm (midi) beads:

Pick the smallest size that still shows the detail you care about — the eyes of a pet, the letters of a name. You can always try a bigger size and compare the two previews. The guide to bead sizes and pegboards explains boards in detail.

Step 3: Limit the colours

A photo gradient needs many shades; beads come in a fixed set, and every extra colour is another bag to buy and another tray to sort. Eight to sixteen colours is a good target for a first pattern. In the generator, lower Maximum colours until the picture starts to lose something important, then go back up by two or three. The guide to choosing bead colours has a table of colour counts for different subjects.

Two settings change the feel of the result: the colour set (the best colours for your picture, or a fixed generic set), and dithering, which mixes two colours to imitate shades. Dithering suits sunsets and skin; it makes cartoons and logos look noisy.

Step 4: Clean up

1. Tick Make a plain background empty if the subject stands on a plain background. Raise the tolerance if some background remains and lower it if the subject starts to disappear.
2. Leave Remove single stray beads on. It replaces isolated beads by the colour around them when the two are close, which removes speckles without erasing details such as eyes.
3. Adjust brightness, contrast and saturation if the preview looks dull — these change the picture before the colours are chosen.
4. Switch on Edit by hand and fix what is left with the pencil: an eye that is a bead too big, a lost outline, an odd bead in a flat area. Undo is always available.

Step 5: Check the numbers

The colour list under the pattern shows exactly how many beads of each colour you need. Add about 10% for lost and misshapen beads — the Copy shopping list button does this. For packs, boards and the finished size, use the bead calculator: open a saved project on its Shopping list tab and it will round each colour up to the pack size you enter.

Step 6: Build and iron

Print the PNG chart or keep it open on a second screen. Work row by row from the top, matching each bead to the legend. When the design is finished, follow the ironing guide. If you prefer working from paper, make a pegboard sheet with the printable grid generator.

Common problems and fixes

Frequently asked questions