How Many Colors Should a Photo Pattern Use?

Color count is the setting people fiddle with most and understand least. Turn it up and the preview looks glorious on screen. Turn it down and the chart becomes something you might actually finish this year.

Both instincts are right. The job is knowing where the line sits for your particular photograph, and it moves depending on what you are stitching and how big it will be.

What an extra color buys you

Thread colors exist to describe change. Where a photograph shifts tone gradually — the curve of a cheek, the side of a dog's muzzle, a sky at dusk — the chart needs several close shades in a row to make that shift look smooth rather than stepped.

Add shades and those transitions soften. Faces gain roundness, fur gains depth, and a sky stops looking like a paint chart. This is the whole reason photo patterns use more colors than traditional designs do.

What an extra color costs you

Four things, and only one of them is obvious.

A skein, minimum. DMC's six-strand floss is sold in 8.7 yard / 8 meter skeins, and you cannot buy a third of one. A shade used for eleven stitches costs the same as a shade used for eleven hundred. On a large chart with many colors, the palette drives your floss bill far more than the stitch count does — we work the numbers in how much embroidery floss you need.

Confetti. Every color you add creates a new boundary with every color it touches, and boundaries are where isolated single stitches appear. This is the single biggest complaint about photo patterns, and color count is the strongest lever you have over it. Confetti stitches: why they happen and how to cut them goes through the rest.

Time at the needle. Stitching time is roughly driven by stitch count, but the feeling of the project is driven by color changes. A chart with a dozen colors flows. A chart with sixty means constant rethreading.

Sorting and finding. Forty shades of brown on a table in evening light is its own small hell. DMC suggests writing the chart symbol next to each color when you organize your threads, and on a big palette that is not optional.

The trade-off in one table

Starting points by subject

These are starting points to compare against, not rules. Every photograph is different, and the preview is the real judge.

The pattern here: flat subjects want few colors, textured subjects want many, and faces want the most. The eye is extraordinarily good at spotting a face that is slightly wrong, and almost indifferent to a slightly simplified hedge. Even a black and white photo needs more than two colors; black and white cross stitch patterns covers how many greys to use.

Starting points by finished size

Color count and stitch count are not independent. A shade needs room to be seen.

Picture a dog's muzzle that occupies a tenth of the width of the chart. On a pattern 80 stitches wide, that muzzle is 8 stitches across, and eight stitches cannot hold six shades of brown in any meaningful way — the shades just alternate and read as noise. On a pattern 250 stitches wide the same muzzle is 25 stitches across and can carry real modeling.

So:

Remember that stitch count, not fabric count, decides detail. The same chart holds the same information on 11-count or 18-count Aida; DMC defines the count simply as the number of stitches you can make in an inch, so a finer fabric only makes the piece smaller. If you are working out what size that will be, work out your fabric size before you cut has the arithmetic.

How to actually decide

Four checks, in order, on the preview.

1. The face test

Find the most important feature — eyes, a muzzle, a smile — and look only at that. If it reads clearly at the lower color count, take the lower one. Most of the extra shades in a big palette are spent on backgrounds and clothing that nobody looks at.

2. The squint test

Half close your eyes at the preview, or step back three meters. This is roughly how the finished piece will be seen. Detail that disappears when you squint is detail that will not survive on a wall, and you can stop paying for it.

3. The near-duplicate check

Scan the color key for shades you cannot tell apart. Two almost identical numbers will look identical in thread as well, and every pair of them doubles the confetti between the two for no visible gain.

Screen color is approximate in any case. DMC sells both a printed shade card and a version with small swatches of each thread — the swatch version, held in daylight, is the only honest way to judge whether two shades are really different.

4. The banding check

Look at the largest smooth area, usually a sky, a wall or a cheek. If it has broken into visible stripes, you have gone too low and the gradient has nowhere to go. That is the one symptom that genuinely calls for more colors.

Two things people forget

Backstitch counts as a color. Outlines, whiskers and lettering are usually worked in one strand and often in a color that appears nowhere else in the chart. That is still a skein.

Unstitched fabric is a color you already own. Choosing Aida in a tone that suits your subject — cream behind a warm portrait, pale gray behind a black cat — gives you a whole background for nothing. Our Aida cloth count guide covers the counts; the color choice is yours.

If you are still unsure

Take the lower number. A slightly simplified chart that gets finished and framed is worth more than a technically superior one that stalls in month three, and the difference between the two is far less visible on a wall than it is on a screen.

The full process, from choosing a photo through to printing the chart, is in how to turn a photo into a cross stitch pattern. If you are stitching an animal, cross stitching a pet portrait from a photo is the place to start — then try your own photo at two color counts and let the previews decide.

Frequently asked questions

How many colors should a cross stitch pattern from a photo have?

There is no single right number, because it depends on the subject and the size. A logo or line drawing may need only a handful. A pet or a human face usually needs a few dozen shades to keep skin and fur from going flat. Compare two or three previews of the same photo before deciding.

Does adding more colors make a pattern look better?

Only up to a point. Extra shades help where tones change gradually, such as skin, fur and sky. Past the point where two shades look identical on screen, more colors add skeins, confetti and stitching time without changing what the finished piece looks like.

What does each extra color actually cost?

At least one skein of floss, even if the color is used twelve times, plus more color changes at the needle and more isolated single stitches. On a large pattern the number of colors drives your floss bill far more than the number of stitches does.

How few colors can I get away with?

Fewer than you think for graphic subjects and more than you think for faces. A silhouette works in one color. A landscape in flat light can look excellent in a dozen or so. A portrait reduced too far starts to look like a poster print rather than a photograph.

Why do two colors in my key look the same?

Because screen color is approximate and thread palettes include many very close shades. If you cannot tell two shades apart in the preview, you almost certainly will not see the difference in floss either. Reduce the color count, or check both numbers against a real shade card in daylight.

Does the fabric count change how many colors I need?

Not directly. Color count is tied to the number of stitches, not the fabric. A finer fabric makes the same chart smaller without changing how many shades it holds, so the detail you can carry comes from the stitch count.

Sources

• DMC — Cotton Embroidery Floss (Mouliné Spécial): 8.7 yard / 8 meter skeins, six strands, 504 options
• DMC — What fabric should I use? (count is the number of stitches per inch)
• DMC — How to read a cross stitch chart (organizing threads by symbol)
• DMC — Embroidery shade card, printed and thread-swatch versions
• The Cross Stitch Guild — Cross stitch chart and key basics