Editing pictures before KG Stitch

[TheThickestNobleman]

I am at a loss. Every time I import a pattern into KG stitch, the picture is way too blurry.

Example: This picture

walking dead cover.jpg (263.25 KiB) Viewed 3066 times

Looks like this in KG Chart:

walking dead 2.sth

(95.26 KiB) Downloaded 178 times

I've been looking at everything I can (this in particular was helpful: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=475) but it's just not detailed enough. So if I have a large image that is blurry, I get that I need to edit it first. But HOW?? I can use GIMP to edit size or number of colors, but that's not enough. As Servotron says, do I want to open it in Paint.net, pixelate it, resize it (bigger or smaller??) and then sharpen? I make a lot of large patterns, so I would love to be able to do this myself. If someone can teach me or lead me to a tutorial, I could finally start my next project! PLEASE help, I've been putting off some amazing projects because I'm unhappy with the pattern I make.

[Servotron]

Here is what I think you should do:
- Decide how big you want the finished piece to be and what size fabric you want it on. For example, 8 x 10 inches on 18 count aida. (Or if the picture won't fit nicely into a picture frame size, just work out what sixe you want one of the sides to be)
-This would mean that your image will need to be 144 x 180 pixels. (size times count of fabric)
-In your preferred graphics program, resize the image to the size you need. You may need to try this a few times, as some programs have different settings for resizing (Bicubic, Biliniar, Nearest Neighbour). Just play around until you find one you like.
- Play around with the Sharpen tool, and also the Brightness, Contrast and Saturation tools as well until you are happy with the image. Save the image as a .png file, NOT A JPEG. Jpegs are rubbish and will undo all your hard work in the compression.
- Import the picture into KG Chart at the same size of the image. (In this example 144 x 180 stitches.) Play with the number of colours you want in the image, less would mean a more contrasting and pixelated line, more would mean a more blurry and graduallly tonal line.
- ???????
- PROFIT!!!

You have to do this long sequence of events for KG Chart because the import process only lets you control size and number of colours. PC Stitch lets you do all this as part of the import process, so is a little more friendly in that respect.

The other way to get more detail is to increase the size of the pattern i.e 8 x 10 inches would become 10 x 12 inches, or to increase the count of the fabric you are using, i.e 18 count becomes 22 count. This give you more stitches per inch, so your 144 x 180 pixel/stitch project becomes 176 x 220, giving you more detail in the same space.

Hope this is useful to you.

[TheThickestNobleman]

Ugh, my entire post got deleted as I was trying to post. First off- thank you so much! That was really helpful and what I was looking for. Everyone says they use Photoshop and have these amazing looking projects, but no one will say what they do!!! Also, I had an epiphany- KG-Chart will only let me make charts up to 320x500 pixels for this one, but the actual number of pixels is 1280x1998. So there is a limit on KG-Chart? I feel stupid I never noticed it before. So I either have to resize my pictures to 320x500 in GIMP and then sharpen, contrast, etc. OR get a program that allows bigger patterns to be made? This is making sense now. Although 320x500 is pretty damn big, I'm surprised it's still so blurry. Detail is much more important to me than size, I love to do big projects, so I probably need a new program then?

Gross, now I have to spend hours figuring out which program is worth it to buy.

[funkymonkey]

Or, just split it across multiple KG-chart files. If you're final goal is 1280 x 1998 (First of all, you're crazy, unless you're using red fabric ) but if you must, crop your image into 16 parts.

Artist's interpretation:

test.jpg (119.45 KiB) Viewed 2986 times

[TheThickestNobleman]

Okay, I got everything figured out now. Thanks for the help everyone!! I see what it means to manipulate the image and THEN import it in the correct size into KG Chart. The only thing I still don't get is does KG Chart have a limit of 500 pixels? That sucks that I have to spend $50 on PC Stitch to make a larger image.

[Servotron]

Okay, I got everything figured out now. Thanks for the help everyone!! I see what it means to manipulate the image and THEN import it in the correct size into KG Chart. The only thing I still don't get is does KG Chart have a limit of 500 pixels? That sucks that I have to spend $50 on PC Stitch to make a larger image.

Yes, the maximum size on KG Chart is 500 pixels square. There is a coupon for PC Stitch here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4441 which may still work. It gives you PC Stitch 10 for $20 so is pretty good.