How to choose photos for fuse bead patterns | Pattern Maker tips

Photos that make good patterns

On the other hand, full-body shots where the subject is small, dark photos taken indoors at night, and cluttered backgrounds tend to lose fine detail.

• The subject (such as a face) fills the frame
• Taken in good light, with few shadows
• The background is a single color, or a different color from the subject
• In focus and not blurry

Crop to just the face

For pets and people, cropping to just the area around the face helps keep their distinctive features. In the Pattern Maker, set “Shape” to square and zoom in to make the face bigger.

Choosing a size

Each 2.6 mm bead is 2.6 mm wide, so the number of beads across × 0.26 gives you the approximate finished size in cm.

Start with fewer colors

More colors bring the pattern closer to the photo, but also mean more work placing beads. We recommend starting with about 12–16 colors, then touching up only the important parts, like the eyes and nose, one bead at a time on screen. Turning on “Reduce noise” merges stray single beads of color, which makes the pattern easier to build.

Remove the background

Turn on “Remove background” and similar colors connected to the edges of the photo become empty. If your subject disappears too, lower the “Background tolerance” setting. Removed areas don't count toward the bead total, so the kit price goes down as well.

If it isn't working, try AI illustration

For pets with complex fur colors or photos with busy backgrounds, first converting the photo into an illustration with “Turn into an illustration with AI” makes the pattern much easier to read (free, with a daily usage limit). You can switch back to the original photo at any time.