Diamond painting
Turn a photo into a diamond painting chart
A diamond painting chart is a symbol grid plus a short list of drill codes and counts. You place one drill per filled cell. The tool doesn't sell drills, set canvas pitch, or promise that bag DMC-310 in your kit matches the hex on your monitor.
Open the diamond painting page. It starts at 50 cells wide, 16 colors, dithering off. Fifty across is enough for eyes and hair masses on a portrait without inventing thirty bags you'll never finish. Sixteen colors is a tray you can still sort. If a logo only needs six flats, drop the slider. If a pet face loses the eye at 16, try 20 before you jump to 32.
Make the photo behave
Crop tight. A diamond chart of a person plus a whole living room is a chart of furniture. Raise contrast until the outline separates from the fill. Leave dithering off. A dithered cheek is two drill colors alternating across a field, which is slow to place and easy to mis-count when you lose your place at cell 37.
Empty cells after a corner drop stay empty. Don't fill them with clear drills unless your kit expects a full rectangle. Shaped canvases are normal. The shopping list sums filled drills only.
If the preview still looks muddy after contrast, lower width before you add colors. Mud at 80 cells with 24 colors is still mud. Clean edges at 48 with 12 colors beat a noisy warehouse. The same order shows up on the muddy conversion page for screen pixels, and it applies here because the engine is the same.
Codes, symbols, shopping
Each legend letter is one color on this chart only. A is the most used color here. The number next to it's the nearest entry from the same published floss list the cross-stitch page uses (MIT-licensed reference; see site notices). Many diamond kits print the same style of numbers. That doesn't make Pixelate Tools an official kit chart. Hold your kit legend or a card next to the screen. If the bag looks different, trust the bag and write that code on the paper.
Copy shopping list after the last slider move. Download PDF builds an A4 pack: cover page with the list, then chart tiles with a 2-cell overlap when the grid is large. Print at 100% scale. Landscape helps on a 50-wide chart. The letter rules are the same as stitch work: how to read a symbol chart.
If a color shows ×8, decide whether those eight drills are worth a bag. Paint them to a neighbor if they aren't. Counts update when you paint, so export again before you shop. A color at ×400 is usually background. Crop again if you didn't mean to buy a wall of one bag.
What this isn't
It's not a centimeter calculator. Pitch differs by canvas. Use the drill counts to order bags, then measure your blank. It's not a copyright license. If the photo isn't yours to use, the chart doesn't fix that.
For thread on fabric, switch to cross-stitch. For pegboards, use fuse beads. For a screen PNG with no symbols, stay on the pixel converter. The stitch twin of this setup walkthrough is photo to cross-stitch.
A workable first project: crop a pet head, width 40 to 50, 12 to 16 colors, export PDF once, place the darkest outline color first so the face holds together while you fill. If row 1 already disagrees with the paper, you printed an older slider state. Throw that paper away. Don't "remember" substitutions while you place drills under a desk lamp that shifts every blue toward purple.
Keep one printed legend on the table and one shopping note on your phone. When a friend asks for the file, send the PDF from the same export, not a screenshot of the preview. Screenshots lose the cover-page counts and the tile labels that tell you which block is which. If you edit cells after you printed, the paper is fiction until you print again.
When diamond charts beat stitch and beads
Pick drills when you want a symbol grid without fabric-count math or hoop sizing. Switch to stitch if you need Make plan inches and skein guesses instead.
First diamond project checklist
Canvas pitch from the seller times drill count gives physical size. Multiply your width in drills by pitch in mm when the listing omits inches. The converter still won't do that multiplication for you; write it on the cover page next to the shopping list.
Questions
Are the codes the same as my kit?
Many kits print floss-style numbers. This tool snaps to a published floss list. Confirm against your kit chart before you order bags.
Why 50 wide?
Fifty cells keep a face readable without a warehouse of bags. Raise it only when a feature dies at that size.
Does the tool set canvas size in cm?
No. It counts drills. Physical size depends on your canvas pitch.
Should I diamond-paint a full room photo?
No. Crop to a face or object or the drill count and bag list explode.
Is PDF required?
No, but PDF tiles help on wide charts. Copy shopping list alone works for small pieces.
Keep going
Updated 30 September 2026