Most photo-to-chart tools draw square cells, which is fine for cross stitch and wrong for knitting. Knit stitches are wider than they are tall, so a portrait charted on squares comes off the needles looking stretched. This generator draws every cell at your knitting gauge, so what you see in the preview is the shape you will knit.
How it works
- Choose a photo. JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and iPhone HEIC are all fine, and the image stays on your device.
- Set the width in stitches. Between 10 and 300; 60 is the default. The height follows from your photo and gauge.
- Pick a colour limit. From 2 to 20 yarn shades, 6 by default. Colours are matched in a perceptual colour space, as explained in how colour matching works.
- Download the chart. The PDF holds the chart with a bold line every 10 stitches, the colour key with yarn estimates, and written rows marked RS or WS.
Tips for a great knitting chart from a photo
Swatch, then chart. Gauge drives everything here: the width in centimetres, the cell shape and the yarn amounts. Knit a swatch in the yarn and stitch you will actually use, wash it the way you will wash the finished piece, and enter that gauge before you judge the preview.
Decide on the technique before the colour count. If you are planning stranded colourwork, a chart with five colours scattered through every row will be very hard to knit evenly. Try 2 or 3 colours and a stronger confetti cleanup. For a picture panel in intarsia, more colours are fine, but every separate area needs its own bobbin, so large simple shapes are kinder.
Mind the floats. In stranded knitting, a long run of one colour means the other yarn floats across the back for that distance. Many knitters catch floats that go beyond about five stitches, or roughly 2.5 cm. Merging tiny stray colours and simplifying the background makes floats more manageable. The knitting floats guide covers this in detail.
Lean on duplicate stitch for detail. Eyes, highlights and outlines of a single stitch are hard to knit in. It is common to knit the main shapes and add these afterwards. Using “Merge colours used fewer than N times” removes them from the knitted chart, and you can note them separately.
Use contrast, not detail. At 60 stitches wide a face or pet has very few stitches to work with. Crop close, raise the contrast slightly and photograph the subject against a plain wall if you can, so the background skip option can drop it cleanly. Strong silhouettes read far better in yarn than subtle shading.
Place the picture with care. On a jumper front, a chart that sits too low disappears into the hem ribbing, and one placed too high runs into neck shaping. Leave a few plain rows above and below the picture.
Before you cast on
If you prefer to sketch alterations by hand, knitter’s graph paper at worsted proportions from our sister site is drawn with knit-proportioned cells. Otherwise, open the chart in the knitting chart editor to tidy individual stitches before printing.
What you get
| Sizes | 10–300 stitches wide from a photo; editor up to 2,000 × 2,000 |
|---|---|
| Colours | 2–20, matched by CIEDE2000 colour difference |
| Palettes | Generic yarn (48 named yarn shades) |
| Downloads | PDF (cover, colour key, numbered chart pages, optional colour pages), PNG, SVG, shopping list CSV, .cpat project |
| Files accepted | JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, AVIF, iPhone HEIC; .cpat and OXS patterns; PDFs made by CraftPatterns |
| Privacy | Runs in your browser. Images are never uploaded. |
| Price | Free — no sign-up, no watermark |
How it compares with other free tools
What you can expect here, every time — no tiers, no trial.
| Free printable PDF | Yes, with no watermark |
|---|---|
| Sign-up needed | No |
| Image uploaded to a server | No — processed on your device |
| Editor | Yes — pencil, fill, line, rectangle, mirror, undo |
| Progress tracker | Yes — free, works offline |
| Switch the same pattern to another craft | Yes — one tap |
Frequently asked questions
Why are the chart cells wider than they are tall?
Because knit stitches are. At the default gauge of 20 stitches and 28 rows per 10 cm, each stitch is 5 mm wide but only about 3.6 mm tall, a ratio of 7 to 5. Drawing the chart on square cells would make a knitted picture look squashed, so the chart uses your gauge for the cell shape.
Can I enter my own gauge?
Yes. Enter the stitches and rows you get over 10 cm from your swatch, measured in the colourwork pattern itself if possible, since stranded fabric is often tighter than plain stockinette. The chart cells, finished size and yarn estimates all update.
How do I read the written rows?
Row 1 is the bottom row of the chart and is a right-side row read from right to left. Row 2 is a wrong-side row read from left to right, and so on. Each row lists colour runs in order, for example 12 Cream, 3 Navy, 12 Cream. If you knit in the round, read every row from right to left on the chart instead.
How many colours can I use per row?
The tool allows up to 20 colours in a chart, but it does not limit how many appear in one row. Traditional stranded knitting typically carries two colours per row; pictures with more colours are often worked in intarsia, or knitted in fewer colours with small details added afterwards in duplicate stitch.
Are the yarn amounts reliable?
They are estimates based on the stitch count of each colour and your gauge, with a small allowance added. Stranded work uses extra yarn in the floats, and tension varies, so buy at least one extra ball of the main colour and of anything you would struggle to match later.
What yarn colours does the chart use?
A palette of 48 generic yarn shades with descriptive names, such as Oatmeal, Mustard or Forest. They are not tied to a brand, so pick the nearest shades from whichever yarn base you are knitting with.
Can the same photo become a crochet or cross-stitch pattern?
Yes. Switch craft in one tap and the cells are kept while the colours are remapped to the new craft's palette. Bear in mind that the picture will look slightly different, because most other crafts use square cells rather than knit-stitch proportions.
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