One major vendor (googled for cross stitching software) offers a trialware which won’t print or save. But it would be possible to view the quality of the result, and for a hard core stitcher they could stitch off of the screen. If it’s OK then it sells for about $50. Support some geek-ettes and consider their product.
It’s been a while, but I bought a cross-stitch program for my daughter and on the box it said that you could scan graphics, pictures, and photographs, and it would make a pattern AND tell you the stock numbers of the thread colors you would need, from three different manufacturers. Sorry, but I don’t remember the name of the software now. I don’t think she ever used it because she doesn’t have a scanner.
The most popular program seems to be PCStitch. I know many people love it. I know a really fast, reliable store with good prices. Let me know if you want the address.
This post threw me for a loop. I have my cross stitching site open in another tab, and I did a double take to make sure which site this was on. :)
I should have mentioned she uses a Mac.
This may limit or widen the possibilities... though I think PCStitch is so named for a reason. (And it looks very nice.)
Any opinions on Mac-only programs?
There’s a freeware program called Hugin that might do the job:
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/download/
I have not tried it, but it looks good,
Thanks, everyone, for your opinions and suggestions. I’m downloading some demos to my computer to test.
My mom would be interested in this... she is a seamstress and is trying to get http://vintagelinensandlace.com going (shameless plug).
Maybe we should start a chat thread showing some of our finishes. I know of several other cross stitchers who would probably join in. :)
I’ve always wanted to make a picture to a pattern, but never have tried a program. Someone recently told me about pic2pat.com It’s a free site online.
I did try loading a picture to the site, but there’s no outlining where you would need to backstitch for detail and that kind of thing. I need specifics in front of me because I’m not creative enough to figure that out for myself.
As I said, I’ve never tried a program like this, so I have no idea how it compares to others.
I’m glad you asked this question because I would love to learn of a great program, myself.
Mark or later.