Will my photo really work?
Simple photos with a clear subject, plain background and strong contrast give the best charts. Busy photos lose detail at crochet sizes, and you can tidy anything in the editor.
Free to design · first pattern free
BetaTurn a Photo Into a Crochet Pattern Without the Color Mess
You upload a photo and get a blur of 60 colors that no one could crochet, with no idea how many stitches go in each row.
Choose the chart size and how many colors to keep, match them to real yarn colors, and get a clean colorwork, C2C or filet chart with every row written out and the yarn for each color.
See it work
Photo import lives in the StitchThis chart maker. These are real screenshots; open the chart maker to try it with your own photo.
From picture to chart in three steps
Pick the chart and size
Colorwork, corner-to-corner or filet, up to 300 × 300 stitches or tiles. The finished size shows in inches and centimeters.
Drop in the photo
Keep 2 to 20 colors, matched to yarn colors or the exact photo colors, and clean up single stray stitches. For filet, set a light/dark threshold.
Tidy and crochet
Repaint stray stitches, swap colors and add a border in the editor, then follow the written rows.
Why the chart comes out crochetable
Fewer, real colors
You choose the color count, and colors can be matched to yarn shades instead of 60 near-identical pixels.
No stray single stitches
Cleanup removes isolated stitches that would mean a color change for one stitch.
Every row written
Color counts row by row for colorwork, diagonal rows for C2C, blocks and spaces for filet.
Yarn per color
Meters and yards for each color, counted from its stitches, so you buy enough of each.
Which photos make good crochet charts
Crochet stitches are big: a 100-stitch blanket has fewer “pixels” across than a phone icon. Simple photos chart best: one subject, a plain background, strong contrast and a few large areas of color. Pet portraits, logos and flowers work; busy landscapes lose their detail.
Colorwork gives the most detail per inch, C2C is faster with bolder shapes, and filet turns the photo into light and dark lace. See the graphgan pattern maker and the C2C pattern maker for each style, check yardage in the crochet yarn calculator, and find the rest on our crochet tools page.
Getting the size and colors right
- Decide the finished size first. At a typical worsted gauge, a 40-stitch colorwork chart makes a pillow front of roughly 11 inches; a 30-tile C2C chart makes a baby blanket of roughly 30 inches.
- Crop tight around the subject before you upload. Background you don’t need costs stitches and colors you don’t want.
- Start with fewer colors and add one at a time. Watch the eyes and edges in the preview: when they stop improving, stop adding colors.
- Match to yarn colors when you want shades you can actually buy; keep the exact photo colors when you plan to pick yarn by eye afterwards.
- Try the same photo as more than one chart type. Each chart is saved separately, so compare a colorwork and a C2C version side by side before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
How many colors should I use?
Fewer than you think: six to ten is plenty for most tapestry and C2C pieces. Each color is another bobbin and another set of color changes.
Can I make a C2C pattern from a photo?
Yes. Choose corner-to-corner and each square becomes one tile, with diagonal rows written for you.
Is turning a photo into a chart free?
Making, tidying and previewing the chart is free. Your first basic crochet pattern is free with an account; after that a chart pattern is $5.99, or 5 for $20, and Craft Unlimited makes every pattern unlimited.
Make your next crochet pattern yours
Design and preview free. Your first basic crochet pattern is free with a StitchThis account; after that it’s $5.99 a pattern, 5 for $20, or Craft Unlimited ($9.99/month or $99.99/year) for unlimited patterns in every craft. Every craft, unleashed.