Last time I sent a newsletter, I posted a link to 3 flower photographs and invited my newsletter subscribers to pick one for me to convert using BeadTool beading software. The choice, overwhelmingly, was for the daisy photograph. A reader named Trudy requested a larger pattern, something that could be framed.

Votes were equally split between peyote and brick. Those stitches are interchangeable for this kind of project. Turn the graph 90 degrees if you want to do it in flat even count peyote.

Using BeadTool to convert photos is easy as pie.

The top tool bar has these icons.

On the right hand side, you pick your stitch and size. If setting them by typing in the number doesn't work, clicking the arrows to set the bead counts will.


After you set the graph size, you can import a photo by clicking the Picture icon and then you size the image using the blue arrows on the photo. You can drag the image by clicking and holding your mouse button, and drag the graph by the bar on top of it.
Then click the transfer icon. You can set the number of colors you want to use in the pop up dialog.


Now decide if you like how it looks, or if you want more or less colors. The right hand side of the screen will show what color beads are used in standard Delica colors, and how many of each bead. Then it's time to export the graph.

For clarity, I prefer PNG format, and the size of the graph will depend on the size you choose from a slide on the export pattern dialog. You can also choose between photo realistic or a flat graph. You also have the option to do a 2 color graph with just keys to show which bead color goes where. If you are selling a finished pattern, you'll want to do both a photo realistic version and a keyed flat version. This is what the keyed flat version looks like.


One of the other things I love about BeadTool is that you can export the bead lists and a word chart. It exports to text format (.txt file) which won't show formatted properly in Notepad. Open the txt file in word processing software like OpenOffice which is free and it looks fine.


Using most word processing software, you can create PDF's for sale or to download from your website. You would combine all the elements from BeadTool to do so.

I wound up doing 2 of the photos. These are the base photographs at 25%.




These are small versions of what they looked like after converting them.




Right click and choose save as to save the files. They are fairly large PDFs and will take a couple minutes to download. They do include the word charts for people who prefer to bead that way, and so you can see the format of the word charts.
Daisy Pattern
Dandelion Pattern

You can download a trial version or purchase BeadTool at BeadTool.net.

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