Creating a Simple Cross Stitch Pattern Using Adobe Photoshop

There are loads of tools available help you create cross stitch patterns. But when I started making Animal Crossing Cross Stitch Patterns, I wanted to be able to control every aspect of the design process myself. So here’s my guide to how I created my simple cross stitch patterns in Adobe Photoshop, using the DMC Color Book I created to get accurate thread colours and numbers.

• Creating the canvas
• Adding your image
• Limiting the colour palette
• Tidy up the image
• Finding the thread colours

Creating the canvas

The first thing we need to do is set the size of the pattern. This is done by creating a new Photoshop image, where the width and height (in pixels) are the number of stitches across and down that you’ll have in your pattern. Deciding on the size of your finished pattern is probably the biggest decision you’ll have to make in this entire process. The bigger your canvas (and the greater the number of pixels), the more detail you’ll get in your finished design, but it’ll be more complicated (and time consuming) than a smaller design. A good size for a beginner is about 30 x 30 pixels. This would take a beginner few hours to complete. 160 x 160 would take a more advanced stitcher days to complete. In this example, I want a simple design, but with a bit of detail. So I’ll use a 50 x 50 canvas.

Adding your image

Using the pencil tool, set to a single pixel in size, you could create your pattern image from scratch. But this example, I’m going to import a picture and turn it into cross stitch pattern. Drag your preferred image onto your canvas and resize it to fit.

What you’ll end up with is a pixellated image. We can improve the quality of the image later, once we’ve set the colour palette.

Limiting the colour palette

If you’ve imported a full colour image, or drawn your own design that includes lots of colours, we now need to limit the number of colours in the image – to give us the number of different threads that you wish to stitch with. Converting the Image Mode to Indexed Colour will quickly limit the number of colours in your image.

There are two options now. You can either limit the number of colours without caring what selected colours are. Or you can define the exact colours that you want to use. The second option is perfect if you only have limited selection of thread colours that you want to use. But if you’ve gonna go out and buy the required threads, then follow Option 1.

Option 1 – Any Colours

Set the Palette to Local (Perceptual). You can now edit the number of different colours that’ll be used. The more colours, the more threads you’ll have to buy. I’m gonna set this to 12, as I feel that gives me a good contrast of colours, whilst not being too many.

Option 2 – Selected Colours

Set the Palette to Custom. You’ll then be given a window to add in each of the colours you want to use. If you’ve got your threads to hand, go through each one and find a good match for each one. You can even hold the thread up to the screen if you need to!

With either option, click OK. Your image will be transformed into a limited palette pattern.

Tidy up the image

Very often, limiting the colour palette will trash bits of your image by badly replacing this or that colour with the new one. Using a bit of artistic license, use the eyedropper tool to select a colour from within your image, and then use the pencil tool to draw and replace areas of the image that might need improving.

This can take a bit of time. But once you’re happy, it’s time to find the thread colours.

Finding the thread colours

If you followed Option 2, you’ll already have rough thread colours for your image. But even if you have, now is an opportunity to have accurate DMC thread colours and numbers in your image. We’ll be using the DMC Colour Library to assign each colour.

Convert your Image Mode to RGB Color.

Use the eyedropper tool to select one of the colours to start with, which will set it as the foreground colour. Selecting the foreground colour form the toolbar will open up the colour picker. Click Color Libraries, and then select the DMC Color Book if it’s not already chosen.

The best match for your selected colour will already be chosen, but you can find a preferred colour by browsing the entire list. Once you’re happy, make a note of the DMC colour number and click OK. The foreground colour will be updated to the DMC colour.

Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill in original colour with it’s replacement. Make sure it’s set to Foreground, Tolerance is 0 and Anti-alias and Contiguous are both unchecked.

If you’re not happy with the colour change, press undo, then repeat the colour picking steps to find a better colour.

Repeat for each of the colours in your image.

Once you’re happy, save your image and use a simple pattern for your cross stitching!