Diamond Painting Pattern Maker

How to make it

1. Add your photoUpload a picture with a clear subject and good light. Crop to the shape of the canvas you have in mind before you start.
2. Pick drills and canvasChoose square or round drills, pick a canvas from 20 x 30 to 60 x 80 cm or type a number in Or drills across, and limit the colors.
3. Count and printCheck the drill count for each DMC code, including spare, then download the chart PDF with symbols and a color key.

What this maker makes, and what it does not

A diamond painting kit is a physical product: a canvas printed with symbols under an adhesive layer, plus bags of resin drills. Searches for a custom diamond painting from a photo are often looking to order one of those. We do not print or sell canvases or drills.

What you get here is the design work behind such a kit: your picture converted to a drill grid, each cell marked with a symbol and a DMC code, a key and an exact count of drills per color. Use it to plan a custom piece, to judge whether a photo will work before ordering anything, to work on a blank adhesive canvas you mark yourself, or simply to see how your own picture looks in drills.

Square or round drills

Square drills sit edge to edge and fill the canvas completely. The finished surface looks like a smooth mosaic with crisp lines and a strong sparkle, and the grid is easy to keep straight once neighbors guide each new drill. They take a little more care to place because a crooked one shows.

Round drills leave small gaps between them, so the canvas shows through a little, and they pick up from a pen and drop into place more forgivingly. Many beginners find them faster and more relaxing. The look is softer and more glittery.

Size changes the drill count. In this maker, square drills are planned at 2.5 mm and round ones at 2.8 mm, so the same canvas holds more square drills and shows a little more detail with them.

Choosing a canvas size for your photo

Detail depends on how many drills the subject covers, not on the canvas alone. A face that fills a 40 by 50 cm canvas spans around 120 drills and reads as a likeness; the same face as a small figure in a landscape gets perhaps 20 drills and becomes a pink blur. Crop close to the subject before converting.

As a starting point, pets and single flowers work from about 30 by 40 cm; portraits of people look better from 40 by 50 cm upward; group photos need 60 cm or more on the long side, and even then small faces are hard. Larger canvases also take longer: tens of thousands of drills are many evenings of work.

The canvas list covers 20 x 30, 30 x 30, 30 x 40, 40 x 50, 50 x 65, 50 x 70 and 60 x 80 cm. If your blank canvas is another size, or you simply want a set width, type the number into Or drills across; leaving it at 0 goes back to the chosen canvas. The maker keeps the photo's proportions. If your picture is a different shape from the canvas, crop it to match first so nothing is stretched.

Colors, symbols and drill counts

Diamond painting drills are sold by DMC numbers, the same system used for embroidery floss, which is why the chart uses DMC codes throughout. Drill shades differ a little from the matching floss, and screens add their own variation, so treat on-screen colors as a guide and compare with real drills when a tone really matters.

Thirty to fifty colors is common for photo-based designs. More colors give smoother skin and sky; fewer make the chart quicker and the drill bags fewer. Small areas with strong contrast, like eyes, a red scarf or a bright window, keep their own color instead of being blended away, and lone drills of a color are tidied toward their nearest neighbor so you are not opening a bag for one drill.

The key lists every code with its symbol, name and count, with a spare allowance added because drills roll away and a few come out misshapen. The PDF prints a symbol on every cell, a stronger line every ten drills and overlapping edges between pages, so you can follow it on the canvas section by section.

Tips for photos that sparkle

Bright, evenly lit photos with clear contrast make the best charts. Dark indoor shots turn into large areas of near-black that are tiring to fill and dull to look at. A flat backdrop can be dropped automatically, giving a crisp cut-out subject surrounded by one calm color.

Avoid pictures that rely on fine texture, such as fur in deep shade or grass. Faces benefit from soft, frontal light without harsh shadows across the eyes. If the first conversion looks noisy, lower the color count before reaching for a bigger canvas.

Work in sections when you start placing drills. Peel back only the strip of protective film you will fill in one sitting, so the rest of the adhesive stays clean. Many people start at one corner and work across in rows of ten, matching the heavier lines on the printed chart, and finish by rolling the canvas flat under a book before framing.

Related charts and colors

Because drills use DMC numbers, the DMC color chart is a handy reference for browsing codes, and the DMC color picker finds the nearest code for any color in a photo. The same picture can also become a cross stitch in the photo cross stitch maker or a bead design in the perler bead pattern maker, and charts saved here stay on this device.