| You want… | Try |
|---|---|
| The photo, just as it is | Natural |
| A pattern you can start tonight with what you own | Threads I own |
| An old-photograph, keepsake feel | Sepia or Black & White (Monochrome), or Vintage Photo (Tritone) |
| A bold, graphic print with few threads | A Duotone, such as Blueprint or Noir + Brass |
| Something loud and fun | Pop Art, Vaporwave or Neon Noir (Art styles) |
| Something soft and calm | Watercolor, Earth Tones or Pastel Mood |
| Retro game style | Game Boy (Duotone) |
| Colors to match a room, a gift or another pattern | A palette you saved (My palettes), or Build your own |
Color Styles
One Color Style picker for image import and Apply a Palette: saved palettes, the threads you own, monochrome, duotone and art styles, or a gradient you build.
- Where to find it
- Image import → Pattern → Colors → Style · Editor → Palette tools → Apply a Palette
Basics
A color style changes the colors your pattern is stitched in, without changing the picture. The same photo of your dog can be stitched in its own colors, in sepia like an old photograph, as a bold two-tone print, in Pop Art, or using only the threads already in your drawer.
Leave it on Natural and the pattern keeps the photo's own colors. That's the default, and plenty of patterns never need anything else. A style is for when you want a particular look, or a particular set of threads.
You'll find the same styles when turning a photo into a pattern and when recoloring a pattern you already have. A palette you save shows up in both.
Which style for which look
None of this is permanent. In the importer, switch back to Natural any time. In the editor, Undo puts the old colors back.
Where to find it
Turning a photo into a pattern: on the Pattern step, open Style at the top of the Colors section. On a phone, it's at the top of Your palette, under All settings. Pixel art has a Style row too. PDF imports don't, because a chart you bought already has its colors. More in Image Import.
Recoloring a pattern you already have: in the editor, open Palette tools at the bottom of the palette and choose Apply a Palette. It shows your chart before and after, and lets you override single colors; see Palette Tools → Apply a Palette. Natural isn't offered there, since the pattern already has its own colors.
Trying styles on
The styles are grouped (Duotone, Art styles, your palettes and so on). Open a group and click down the list: the preview recolors with every click, so you can compare quickly without reopening anything. All styles takes you back to the groups.
Know what you're after? Type a name like "sepia" or "pop" into Search colors to look through every group at once.
The line at the top always shows what you've picked and how many colors it has.
The styles
Groups you have nothing in, like My palettes before you've saved one, are hidden.
Natural
The photo's own colors, matched to real threads. Only offered when turning a photo into a pattern.
My palettes and Starter palettes
My palettes are ones you've saved, for example with Save to my palettes in Palette Tools. Use them to keep a series of patterns in the same colors, or to reuse a palette you liked. Starter palettes come with Stitchmate. Both are made of real threads, so the codes go straight into your thread key.
Threads I own
Make the pattern only from threads in your stash: no shopping, start tonight. Pick one brand, or Every thread I own to mix all your brands (shown when you own more than one).
When turning a photo into a pattern, there's a shortcut: the Only DMC threads I own switch under Fabric & threads (it names your brand). Switching it on picks that brand here, and switching it off goes back to Natural.
Art styles
Ready-made color sets with a strong character:
| Style | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Pop Art | Saturated comic-book colors |
| Vaporwave | Pink, purple, teal, soft yellow |
| Earth Tones | Warm naturals |
| Watercolor | Soft, muted washes |
| Neon Noir | Dark base with neon accents |
Each starts with five to seven colors, which gives a flat, poster-like look. Want shading instead? Raise the color count, up to 30. The style adds lighter and darker shades of its own colors and blends between them, but never a color from outside its family, so Pop Art still looks like Pop Art, just rounder.
Monochrome, Duotone and Tritone
These keep the picture's light and shade but tell it in one, two or three colors, so they work on almost any photo.
- Monochrome: Black & White, Sepia, Negative, Charcoal, Slate.
- Duotone: Blueprint, Noir + Brass, Pastel Mood, Forest, Rust, Game Boy, Wine.
- Tritone: Riso · Pink + Teal, Vintage Photo, Mocha, Ocean, Sunset.
Anywhere from 2 to 32 colors. Fewer gives a bold print, more gives smooth, photographic shading.
Tracing
Muted colors that stay clearly different from each other, made for outlining shapes rather than shading them. Up to 50 colors.
Build your own
- Gradient: pick one to three colors and Stitchmate fills in the shades between them (with a single color, it adds a darker and a lighter version). 2 to 32 colors.
- My colors: pick every color yourself, up to 24.
Choose either one and its controls open right underneath.
How many colors
When turning a photo into a pattern, the Color count slider under Style sets how many colors you get, whatever the style:
- Natural, an art style, a gradient or Tracing: the most colors to use, such as "20 max".
- A palette, your stash or My colors: how many of its colors to use. Stitchmate picks the ones that suit your picture best, shown as "12 of 47".
The count is a limit, not a promise. Similar shades can merge, and Clean up can remove a few, so you may end up just under it. "Typical for this size" beside the slider is a sensible range to start from.
In the editor, Apply a Palette has a Colors slider for styles that can grow or shrink. A saved palette or your stash is applied as it is.
How it maps
How it maps decides which style color each part of the picture becomes. You'll usually never touch it, but if a style looks wrong on your picture, try the other option:
- By lightness: light parts get the style's light colors, dark parts its dark ones. The picture keeps its shading, even if the colors change completely. The default for Monochrome, Duotone, Tritone and gradients.
- Closest color: every color becomes the nearest one in the style, so a red stays as close to red as the style allows. The default for art styles, palettes and your stash.
The options button next to it has three finer controls:
- Color vs lightness (Closest color): whether matching cares more about the hue or about how light or dark it is.
- Flip dark and light (By lightness): reverse it, for a negative-style look.
- Fill the palette's range (By lightness): on by default. It uses the whole range of the style even if your photo is mostly dark or mostly light. Switch it off to keep a dark photo dark.
With Natural there's nothing to map, so the control is greyed out.
Tips & gotchas
- Click down a group to compare. It's the fastest way to see five duotones on your picture.
- Portraits love gradients. Sepia, Charcoal or a duotone at 8–12 colors gives a classic photo look with few threads to buy.
- Art style looks flat? Raise the count. The extra shades read as shading on faces and landscapes.
- You still get real thread codes. When turning a photo into a pattern, every style color is matched to a real thread in your chosen brand, so the thread key lists codes you can buy.
- Found colors you love? Save them. In the editor, Save to my palettes makes them a palette you can use on your next pattern.
- Changed your mind in the editor? Apply a Palette recolors the whole chart, and Cmd/Ctrl+Z undoes it.