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Auto-digitize a photo (Photostitch)

Use Photostitch when you want a photo, such as a pet, a face, or a landscape, to read as an embroidered picture with its light and shade intact. You get a design made of tonal stipple stitches: darker areas get denser stitching, lighter areas sparser. It runs on your own computer and costs nothing to try.

It's one of the three Auto-digitize methods; the others are Cross-stitch (for pixel art) and Auto-Trace (for logos and flat clip art).

Example: a one-color pet portrait on a tote bag

A clear photo of your dog, to sew 90 mm wide in black thread on a natural canvas tote.

  1. In the prepare step, turn on Remove background so the sofa behind the dog never becomes stitches.
  2. Set Width (mm) to 90 and Colors to 1.
  3. Leave Budget on Density (6) and Connector on Trim.
  4. If the face looks flat, raise Contrast a step and watch the preview.
  5. Click Add to design, then run Analysis before you export.

Open it​

Click Auto-digitize in the tool rail's Automation group (or File → Import → Auto-digitize…), then pick Photostitch from the method chooser.

Two auto-digitize entries

New in v1.3.0, the chooser holds only the methods that run on your own computer, and its heading says so: your images never leave the device. A second entry, Advanced auto-digitize, holds three methods that run on Boldbobbin's servers and cost credits. See Advanced auto-digitize.

Prepare the photo​

To keep the backdrop from becoming stitches, use the prepare step before the settings: it can cut the subject out of its background. Your original sits next to the live cutout on a checkerboard, and a Sensitivity slider re-cuts instantly as you move it.

It runs on your own computer, on desktop and in the browser: nothing is uploaded, and it works offline. Auto-Trace has the same step.

The dialog​

Drop or pick a photo; a live preview regenerates automatically as you adjust settings, with a Stitch / Realistic look toggle. Clicking outside the chooser dialogs does not close them.

  • Size: Width (mm) and Height (mm), with an aspect-ratio lock.
  • Colors: how many thread colors to use (default 5). 1 makes a single-color (monochrome) design, sewn with no thread changes.
  • Budget: how the stitch count is chosen: either a Density target (stitches per mm², scaled by the design size; default 6) or a Max stitches cap (default 10,000). Higher gives more detail but a denser, slower design. For example, on a thin T-shirt knit you might lower Density so the picture doesn't stiffen or pucker the fabric.
  • Connector: how the machine travels between stitched areas: Trim (cuts the thread; the cleanest look for photos, and the default), Jump (a loose float), or a stitched Straight / Zigzag connecting line.

Advanced​

  • Min stitch (mm): the shortest stitch the machine will sew (default 0.2 mm). Lower packs stitches more densely.
  • Max stitch (mm): the longest a single stitch can be before it's split (default 4.0 mm).
  • Contrast: tonal stretch; higher makes shadows denser and highlights sparser (default 3.5).
  • Fill floor: minimum coverage in light areas, so highlights aren't left as bare fabric (default 0.12; color designs only).
  • Smoothing: how evenly stitch points are spread out; higher is smoother but slower (default 16).
  • Connector over (mm): a travel longer than this becomes a connector (a trim, jump, or connecting line), default 2.5 mm.
  • Working resolution (px): how much of the photo's detail is used; higher captures finer detail but is slower (default 1024 px).
  • Seed: change it to get a different stitch layout from the same settings, for example when one arrangement leaves an awkward cluster in a face.
  • Decompose layers: add the design as one stitch block per contiguous run (connected by jumps or trims) instead of one block per color. On by default; stitched connectors (Straight/Zigzag) always stay one block per color, since there's no travel to split.

Reset to defaults restores every field. Click Add to design when you're happy with the preview.

Exporting​

You can generate and preview a Photostitch design for free, with no limit on how much you experiment. Exporting a design that includes auto-digitized content (Photostitch, cross-stitch, or Auto-Trace) needs Pro. See Plans and credits.

Checking the result​

Photostitch designs can be stitch-dense. Run Analysis before exporting to catch overly long stitches or dense hotspots.