Import as cross-stitch
Use Cross-stitch when you have pixel art (a game sprite, an icon, a chart saved as a picture) and want it sewn one cross per pixel, in the picture's own colors. You end with a pixel sprite in your design, which you can keep repainting cell by cell, resize, or switch to another stitch method later. It's one of the three Auto-digitize methods; the others are Photostitch (for photos) and Auto-Trace (for logos and flat clip art).
This page brings in a picture you already have. To draw pixel art from scratch, make a pixel sprite and paint it. Either way you end with the same kind of object, so every sprite tool works on an import too.
- Pick the PNG. The dialog reads "Source image: 32×32 px".
- Leave Stitch as on Cross-stitch and Stitch size at 1.2 mm. The preview reads "Design size: 38×38 mm".
- For a bigger, chunkier strawberry, set Stitch size to 2 mm: it grows to 64 mm square.
- On a blank project, tick Discard unused palette colors, then click Add to design.
How to open it
Click Auto-digitize in the tool rail's Automation group (or File → Import → Auto-digitize…), then pick Cross-stitch from the method chooser. (Dropping an image onto the canvas does not import it as cross-stitch: it asks whether to Auto-Trace it or use it as a reference.)
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.
Accepted image types: PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP, up to 128 × 128 source pixels and 256 colors. Because each pixel becomes one cell, a larger picture is refused rather than shrunk, and the message names its size so you can resize it and try again. A picture with too many colors (a photo, usually) is refused too, with its exact color count: reduce its colors, or use Photostitch for a photo.
The dialog
Drop or pick your pixel-art image; a live preview regenerates automatically as you adjust settings, with a Stitch / Realistic look toggle. Options:
- Stitch as: how each pixel is sewn. Cross-stitch (default) gives the classic pixel look; Mini-satin sews a small glossy satin block per cell (with its own settings, shown when you pick it); Tatami fill floods each block of color solid, which reads as a silhouette rather than pixel art. See How a sprite stitches.
- Stitch size: the side length of one cell, in millimetres (slider and number field; default 1.2 mm, maximum 3 mm, minimum 0.5 mm for cross-stitch and higher for mini-satin). Smaller packs more detail into the same area; larger makes a bigger, chunkier design. A note under the field tells you when the method wants larger cells.
- Design size: shown live as width × height in mm, with a warning if it's larger than your current hoop.
- Discard unused palette colors: after adding the design, drop palette colors it doesn't use (handy on a blank project, where the three starter colors would otherwise stick around). Colors the design does use are always added.
Then pick how to finish:
- Add to design places the sprite in your design, centered in the hoop.
- Modify in editor does the same, then opens the pixel editor on it so you can touch up cells straight away.
- Match colors to my threads… (shown when you have thread-chart mappings) adds the design, then opens Design palettes so you can map each color to one of your owned thread charts.
To keep the thread count down, reduce the image's colors in an external editor before importing.
Exporting
You can create and preview a cross-stitch design for free. Exporting or publishing a design whose sprite is stitched as Cross-stitch or Mini-satin needs Pro; a sprite set to Tatami fill does not. See What it costs and Plans and credits.
Each distinct color in the picture is its own thread, so pixel art with dozens of colors makes a design with dozens of thread changes. Simplify the image's colors first if that's not what you want.