Computer Generated Charts

You`re SOOOoo right, Tracy, and I`m glad you brought this up. They give those of us who really DO spend hours and hours cleaning up the images a bad name!

It SHOULD take hours and hours in, for instance, getting rid of as many orphan stitches as possible and prettying things up or removing obvious eyesores from scenery etc. I specialise in old buildings, as you know, and find an extra flower planter or something similar can be very useful on an awkward corner!

I`ve looked at many of them on Ebay and form the number turned out in a whole bloack, it`s obvious that absolutely no thought or effort has been put into them. In fact you wonder whether some of the people who produce them have ever seen a needle and thread, let alone done cross stitch!

I always stitch mine out, and often change things with the computer as I go - and a large design (by large I mean at least 175 by 250, often more) can take many weeks to perfect.

Actually, if you do a quick conversion from a scan of a photo to a chart, you`re lucky if you don`t get far more than 142 colours!

I always tell my programme to use 25 to 35 colours (depending on the complexity of the subject) then add or delete as necessary from there. If the subject has loads of flowers I suggest that the stitcher uses up their odds and ends, as flower colours as part of the scenery don`t really have to stick to what is recommended in the pattern!

Pat P

When I transfrom photos of my cats into my Kitty designs, I usually tell the software to give me 75 colors, then edit those down over the period of about a week (several hours a day of working on the chart). I've found that starting with fewer colors takes the details away, but starting with more and merging them as I see fit works a lot better for me.

I think the folks on ebay are pretty much rip off artists, they steal images (they never mention copyrights of artists, or frequently even the artists' names) and sell the chart using the original picture, not even a computer generated mock up of how the stitched piece will look.

It does make people who work hard on their charting, as Pat does, look bad. And it irritates the living crap out of this designer who tries to work from her original artwork as well.

Caryn

I have no idea why people buy these charts at all! Providing no-one puts in time, which is expensive, such charts can be produced at virtually no cost. Cleaning up the charts is, however, not easy to do, and can be very expensive. There are a few "idiots" like me who find it a challenge to complete these sort of charts, with oodles of confetti stitches, etc., but I suspect we are in a ***VERY*** small minority. However, if anyone wants a picture turned into a chart, I will do it for nothing; completely free. Just find a picture, make it "one pixel per stitch", tell me how many colors, and I will wing back a pattern to you in somewhat less than 5 minutes. Whether you ever want to stitch the pattern is a horse of an entirely different color!

"Tracy Dunne" ( snipped-for-privacy@removethis.ntlworld.com) writes:

On Fri, 27 May 2005 15:05:19 GMT, Pat EAXStitch muttered something like:

Ebay appears to only accept copyright violation complaints from the owner of the copyright--best thing to do is notify the copyright owner, if they can be identified, and give them the link to the auction and the link to complain

once wanted a chart of the Taj Mahal, and thought to save myself some money by scanning in a picture and making the chart myself from software. As soon as I saw what the software came up with, I decided it was well worth the eight bucks to buy someone's chart rather than turn that mess into something I could enjoy stitching.

-Bertha

Shame you gave up - turning the mess into something to stitch is almost as much fun as stitching. Mind you, being accustomed to a bit of drawing/painting yourself is an asset. Still - thank goodness for designers that there ARE folk like you who admit defeat! LOL!

Pat P

Oh, though, I am *SO* interested in doing that kind of puzzle. It never occured to me (I quilt much more than I stitch).

What technique do you use to scan/convert the preliminary image? Is there an actual piece of software out there?

I have some lovely pictures from my anniversary trip to Hawaii that would be interesting to try.

Ahh, but as you mentioned, the fun would be in the making of the chart!

I would be grateful if anyone wanted to point me in the right direction! Thanks, Lisa

There are several good charting software packages available. I use Patternmaker Pro, but they also have a non-professional version available (at half the price). You can download a free demo to play with at

I know there are other options as well, but as I don't use those, I can't give you much info.

Any digitalized image will do, if you got your pictures saved on a CD you can import one directly from the CD into the charting software. If you only have it as a print many camera stores, photo places and copy stores like Kinko's have scanners available (this is assuming you don't own a scanner! LOL)

Good luck,

Caryn

Hi Bertha,

Do you happen to know if it was the computer program you were using? I mean, are the stitching computer programs really very different from each other? I use P.C. Stitch for my own personal charts and have found it makes great 'busts' of friends for Christmas gifts etc. It does take 'tweaking' but that's half the fun of doing each project to begin with, IMHO.

Maureen

Bertha wrote:

On Sat, 28 May 2005 16:46:27 GMT, Maureen In Vancouver, B.C. muttered something like:

I was using PatternMaker Pro--I've had success designing in it from scratch, but somehow I lacked the patience to tweak the image I imported. Probably because I wanted to be stitching it, not charting it. :)

-Bertha

Amen! Since I only chart for myself, I simply print out the "first draft", and tweak as I stitch. It's not like I slavishly adhere to the chart even when someone else has spent hours tweaking.....

I've sent you email AND added a sig -- hope it works, it's necessary only for newsgroups - to remove 'hatespam' The domain name is hotmail (a MicroSoft freebie) and the Outlook Express email and newsgroup reader I use (a MicroSoft product as well) wouldn't let me enter anything but a valid email if I kept the domain as hotmail. So, I put the hate spam in the middle -- never realizing it does look pretty complex if you don't pick up on the hotmail domain.

I thank you for the time. I will also 'do my homework' and google within rctn for the threads. Thanks again.