Making Patterns From An Image/picture

[CowboyDan]

Ok, you know how it goes... looking for something to use as a tracing pattern, but can't find any decent ones like what I'm looking for. So, found an image that seems like it might work, but I want to convert it to a black & white image first to make the pattern.

Lo & behold, my favorite editing software doesn't do something like this, so it's off to research on the internet.....

A few days later, I haven't found anything near detailed enough to tell me what I need to know, but eventually I figure something out.

Sooo, I wrote the steps up. Hopefully it should help someone else.

Start by downloading and installing GIMP.

GIMP is a free, opensource image editing software.

This instruction was written using GIMP 2.8.0, windows version.

1. Open an image. For this instruction, I’m using a picture I took in the flower bed outside my house.

2. Use the Crop tool to outline only the part of the image you want as a pattern.

3. Then press the ENTER key on the keyboard.

4. Now, hold down the control button (CTRL), and use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in. That way you can see the changes better.

5. Navigate to Filters>>Artistic>>Cartoon

6. Use the mouse to drag the preview window around until you can see the main part of the image.

7. Then adjust the Mask Radius and the Percent Black until you get good black lines. These will become the pattern lines. For these instructions, I used a Mask Radius of 25.90 and Percent Black of 0.230. Once you get the lines where they look okay, press the OK button. If you don’t like the results, you can press Ctrl + Z to undo the filter, and try again. The actual values will change depending on the image you're using, so don't expect my values to work for any other image.

8. Navigate to Colors>>Value Invert. This is important because it flips the color values instead of the colors themselves. To understand this, think in terms of binary numbers instead of decimal numbers.

9. Now navigate to Image>>Mode>>Indexed.

10. Select ‘Use black and white (1-bit) palette. Then click ‘Convert’.

11. Once more, Navigate to Colors>>Value Invert. This will change the colors to black lines on a white background.

12. Navigate to File>>export to save the pattern image (JPG). I recommend using the default values, they seem to be pretty common values.

Any further clean-up (connecting broken lines, etc…) can be accomplished in GIMP, or in your favorite image editing program, or by hand as you trace the pattern.

Note:

I know it seems silly to value invert the colors before indexing the color, then value invert it back. But I think it turns out better that way, more like a pattern than a B&W picture. Notice in the non-inverted image that there are several large black splotches that don’t appear in the inverted image in the instructions. For making a tracing pattern, I think the lack of splotches is better.

Adding non-inverted version of the pattern.

[CowboyDan]

Well, for some reason I can't get the original picture to upload. It's less than 600k, so I'm not sure what's wrong. I'll try again later.

Edited May 26, 2012 by CowboyDan

[chancey77]

Well, for some reason I can't get the original picture to upload. It's less than 600k, so I'm not sure what's wrong. I'll try again later.

Sometimes this site doesn't load an image after you have started a topic after a few minuets...

You have to copy it reload the page ..LOOAD IMAGE FIRST and the paste you original text.

Also images here should be 1200-1500 x 1200-1500 ish pixels to fit the screen nicely.

I have a huge big screen Imac, and your image was so big I had to scroll all over the place to see the image and find the close box. It may only be 600k but the size is still huge.

I hope this helps.

I won't do this for everyone, but if you want to email me an image I can invert it and make it black and white in about 2 minuets in Photoshop CS4or ya:)

Gimp is free and it takes a lot of work to do what you want to do. Photoshop is very fast:)

Open, adjust done.

chancey77@gmail.com

TTYL8R!

[LuisPaulo]

tks !!

I have GIMP installed here but almost never use it. Now I'll pay more attention to it..

[LuisPaulo]

tks !!

I have GIMP installed here but almost never use it. Now I'll pay more attention to it..

[Sylvia]

I use paint.net for my graphics program.

I go about this differently.

Original, remove excess background. I do this by drawing a circle mask and Ctrl-X to cut the image I want from the original. Then I paste as new image. (edit-paste as new image) Then save.

Then... I go to Effects-Stylize-Outline... I get this.

Then I change it to black and white. Adjustments - Black and White.

It needs a little more help so I click Effects, Artistic, Ink Drawing.

And I get this.

Done.

Keep in mind this works best with a photo or picture that has good contrast initially.

[CowboyDan]

Sometimes this site doesn't load an image after you have started a topic after a few minuets...

You have to copy it reload the page ..LOOAD IMAGE FIRST and the paste you original text.

Also images here should be 1200-1500 x 1200-1500 ish pixels to fit the screen nicely.

I have a huge big screen Imac, and your image was so big I had to scroll all over the place to see the image and find the close box. It may only be 600k but the size is still huge.

I hope this helps.

I won't do this for everyone, but if you want to email me an image I can invert it and make it black and white in about 2 minuets in Photoshop CS4or ya:)

Gimp is free and it takes a lot of work to do what you want to do. Photoshop is very fast:)

Open, adjust done.

chancey77@gmail.com

TTYL8R!

Lol. I hate small pictures.

This is actually the first forum I've seen in recent years that didn't automatically resize the image to fit the screen.

The devil's in the details, and that's where the real work is. So I like to be able to see details. I get a lot of folks commenting on my details at my day job.

Thanks Chancey. I may take you up on that in a few weeks.

This week is insanely busy, and I'll be out & about for a bit after that.