Question about KG Chart

[Juliefoo]

I wanted to play around with KG Chart and see if i could figure out how to turn this image into a cross stitch.
I was able to pixelize it, and i was very happy with it.

I taught myself how to cross stitch ONLY from looking at pixelated pictures or sprites... i'm just now learning about patterns, and i'm wanting to make patterns for etsy... so that's why i'm trying to figure this out.

When i imported my pixelized pony into KG Stitch, It looked like this:


Terrible! it took the clean pixelized version and distorted it terribly and changed colors! I messed with the settings on the import, and it still messes everything up. Any suggestions, or websites you know of that i can go to to learn more?
Help!

Thanks so much <3

[blackmageheart]

Hi Juliefoo!

Firstly, the reason your image has distorted in that way is because you have resized it to make it a lot smaller. The image you posted above is 580x543 pixels and I can see from your screenshot of KGChart that your pattern is 145x135. Shrinking the pictures always gives them fuzzy edges - what I do when faced with something like this is to redraw the entire picture so that each "block" is one actual pixel. What you have right now is this:

derppix.png (1.19 KiB) Viewed 4867 times

See how what should be one pixel is actually 16? (I did the checker board thing so you can count the pixels.) So, as I was saying, I redraw things to make them one pixel. I would be happy to do this for you if needed!

Second issue - the on screen colours in the pattern. Don't worry about this, it's just a guide and is usually quite wrong. As long as the thread numbers and colours match the original image, it doesn't matter what colour the squares in the pattern are. For example, I'm working on a project at the minute, and I have matched the colours from my source image to the thread colour. So, in my pattern, I've changed the colours to now reflect what I want to use - but now the colours on my on-screen pattern don't look like the original picture. But that's ok, because I know that the colours I'm stitching with are fine!
tl;dr - don't use the on-screen colours as a guide, trust the numbers and the threads!

Hope that's not too confusing for you, but if it is, or you'd like any help with your pattern, please ask and I'll be happy to help you out!

[Servotron]

I've had a play with it and what seems to be the problem is that KG Chart has a problem with resizing the image, probably due to fact that the pixel height doesn't divide neatly by 4. As Blackmageheart said, you had each pixel as a 4x4 square, so I've added an extra row of pixels to make it divide by 4. Import this image into KG Chart and set the size to 145 x 136. It should look OK now!

derppngb.png (3.17 KiB) Viewed 4863 times

[blackmageheart]

Or you can do that!

Totally did not think of adding the row of pixels!

[SecretAgent0010]

when you get the pattern done, can you share it with the board? My husband love MLP and derpy is one of his favourites.

Thanks!

[Juliefoo]

when you get the pattern done, can you share it with the board? My husband love MLP and derpy is one of his favourites.

Thanks!

Thanks everyone! I think i understand it a bit better now
I've attached Derpy Hooves here. I also have other ponys available on my etsy now!
http://www.etsy.com/people/Juliefoo

[Juliefoo]

Have another similar problem.
I recently..... sorta, figured out how to use KG Chart.. however i'm still not entirely sure how to fix the problem i had above.
This image, Each Pixel is 2 pixels wide by 2 pixels tall. I tried making the image divisible by 2s, but when i imported it into KG Chart it still blurred it.
I'd like the cross stitch to be around 200 stitches wide. but right now the image is 384 wide by 224 tall
I have a few different patterns that i've been trying to make that have this same problem.
I've learned how to make a pattern that does not have this problem, but now that i'm trying to go back and fix the ones that do have this problem, it's making me confused again.....
Can anyone help?
Thanks!

[Timespace]

Part of the problem seems to be that there's a bit of outline on the top of the head which is 3 pixels high - I changed it to two and resized the image. It seems to work fine in KG-Chart, apart from a couple of random stitches of not-quite-white around the outline (no idea where it's getting those from).

twi2.png (6.31 KiB) Viewed 4639 times

[funkymonkey]

Hmm, I see what you mean.

In general, what works for me:

On the Import screen:
-Change Linen Tn./One Stich: from 2 to 1
-Since the double-size original image was 384 x 224, change the Chart Size to 192 x 112 (half size)
-Colors used: 17

But what is happening with this image, when the software reduces the size by half, it ends up getting this image:

twi2.png (8.97 KiB) Viewed 4636 times

Which is the image it then tries to assign colors to. In PC-Stitch, it has an option called "Smooth Colors" that if you uncheck, this process imports that image just fine. KG-Chart just doesn't have that option.

As far as I can tell, your best option is to either redraw it with single pixels, or buy PC-Stitch.

I attached the PDF below of how the picture imported into PC-Stitch with no editing.

[Juliefoo]

Ok, you guys have been super helpful so far, and like i said, i had several with this same problem
Is there a quick fix, other than completely re-drawing them from scratch?
I have 2 more to do. I've been re-drawing them... i'm starting to get burnt out on it. After these 2, I should be all set. Would anyone be so kind to help me out with these last 2, then i'll stop bugging you <3
I <3 you guys. you're fantastic <3

and


Again, same problem as above. Each ONE pixel in the 2 pictures above have 4 pixels to 1 pixel ratio. 2x2 = 1 pixel