Scanning Photo for Design

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It's important to know what your scanner can do. Scan some photos with different options, refer to the HELP Area of your scanning program and teach yourself to get the most from your scanners features.

My scanner's lowest resolution setting is 75 dpi (dots per inch). The highest setting is 1200 dpi. The higher the setting, the larger (and sharper)  the picture will be. The default setting for the scanner is 150 dpi. This is a preferred setting for me if my design is going to be on 14 count fabric or 16 ct. fabric. I can then make an approximate guage of the design. My photo has been scanned at around 10 times larger than the design area.

14 count means 14 holes per inch.

Below are the steps I took using my scanner as the method of aquiring an image of a beloved family pet.

Due to the dog's colouring, I did not want the design to appear blotchy so this image was scanned at a higher setting.

In an image editing program I completly removed the background and cropped the photo to the desired design size. This helps eliminate unnecessary colours in the final design.

I transfered the edited photo to a cross-stitch program. My program allows me to preview choosen options. I removed the background stitches to simplify the printed design. I choose 44 colours for the palette and the design size is 7" x 11.6". This is a fairly large design, but won't be too tedious to stitch as I have removed the background. After the design is printed I may wish to use a diferent type of fabric such as a hand dyed linen. There are countless options open to me and there are no rules that state you have to create your design to certain specifications. Be wild and free. Let the inner artist out.

Manually, I removed unwanted stitches. Mainly a row outlining the dog. I added a backstitch around the eyes to emphasize them as the dog had light coloured eyes that tended to be washed out in photos.

Be creative with what you scan. Example-Scan some cookie cutters-work on techniques.