You have spotted all those awesome patterns on Pinterest, Etsy, and other platforms. Still, wondering where they came from and how they are made? Keep reading to find out! Little hint: BeadsTool4 has something to do with this!
BeadsTool4 is my best friend. For creating stunning patterns, I use BeadsTool4 to convert lovely pictures into a beads pattern for bracelets and paintings. The BeadsTool4 allows you to upload an image and set this to a converted beads pattern including all the colors you need. But how is this possible and what is needed to create these stunning patterns? Let me tell you all about BeadsTool4.
Paid vs. Free
First of all; to get access to all the features you need to buy the tool. With the free version, you can create patterns but you can’t save them nor print them out as PDF files. You have access to all the colors that are available but have to print screen it all to save it, which is a hell of a job. And if you create new colors within the same pattern… well you have to print screen everything again. So, if you are planning to create a lot of patterns or to sell them on like Etsy for sample, make sure you just buy the tool. Makes your life so much easier.
Creating bracelet patterns is very easy. You can buy a little book with squares in them and just draw your pattern out. But when creating a pattern from a photo, doing this all by hand on just a piece of paper is hard to do. When working with BeadsTool4, you can set up an image and convert it into a beads pattern. You can select which ‘groups’ of beads you want or select them all. You can create your own list of beads you have in stock to only use those colors in your patterns. There are many selections you can set for creating an awesome pattern.
In search of something easy? Set your pattern to a square! Or if you want something special and better looking, set is to Peyote or even a Peyote with a 2 drop, 3 drops, and more.
You can simply add a picture to the pattern board and converting this to a beads pattern. Keep in mind that the beads tool can only select colors that are apart from each other. In other words: when a person has bright blue eyes with a bit of black mascara and you set it too small the changes are that the eyes have only 1 little bead of blue and the rest is black or everything might be black. From creating images to beads patterns, make sure your pictures are big and of high quality. You can even create a large frame and set it down to a limited width and height once you’re done creating and transforming the image to a pattern.
Never go for the first shot that the tool creates. You can always just hit the ‘back’ button, move your picture around a bit, and transform the whole thing again. Other colors might pop up or those eyes might look even better next time. Not sure which version to take? Save every step in separate files that you can always go back and try again.
Tips
When I first started out using the BeadsTool4, I tried everything out first before getting serious with it. Here are some tips that I learned along the way by using photos for my patterns.
- Always take an HQ photo, just look for free stock photo’s to try stuff out
- Never use more than 30 colors for the transformation. You can use more, but add some colors together if they are below 50 beads per project that are similar to each other
- Try a bigger canvas than you actually need as the details come more forward. You can always scale down, not up.
- Try to enlarge your photo that it is still looking good. Small photos won’t have that many details to them as the BeadsTool can’t read the color patterns
- Go back and forth when creating a pattern from a photo. You might be surprised what a tiny bit to the left or right can make as a difference for details to show
- Not every photo will work out! Just look for another one as light photos might turn totally white or pink. Deep color contrasts are the best photo’s to convert.
- Use Photoshop or LightRoom to set your photo to a high contrast and lightning effect. Even a really blue sky will be pastel in the BeadsTool. The more contrasts in your photo, the more details will show. So over contrasting isn’t a bad thing when working with the BeadsTool.
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