| I want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| See how bad it is, and where | Turn on ConfettiScope (Shift+C) |
| Fix the whole pattern quickly | Clean up confetti in the Check tab |
| Clean harder, or only part of the pattern, with a preview | Auto mode, with a selection if you like |
| Clean the background but leave a face or lettering alone | Auto mode with a mask |
| Fix a few stray stitches here and there | Brush mode |
| Fix confetti before the pattern even exists | Clean up in image import |
Confetti Cleanup Tool
Get rid of confetti, the lone single stitches that make a pattern tedious to stitch. Clean the whole pattern in one press, preview a stronger pass, protect faces and text with a mask, or brush away speckles by hand.
- Where to find it
- Left toolbar → Clean Up Confetti / Right panel → Check
Keyboard & modifiers
- Shift+C
- Show or hide ConfettiScope
- W]
- Bigger brush (Brush mode and mask)
- S[
- Smaller brush (Brush mode and mask)
Basics
Confetti is a stitch sitting alone, away from others of its color. Photo conversions are full of it. On the chart it looks like harmless texture, but on fabric every lone stitch can mean threading a needle for one cross, and a pattern full of them is slow and fiddly.
Cleaning it up changes each lone stitch to a color around it, so the area becomes a calm patch you can stitch in runs. The picture stays the same from a normal viewing distance. Every way of cleaning can be undone.
Which way to clean
One-press cleanup in the Check tab
The fastest way. The Check tab in the right panel shows your FLOW score. When confetti is holding it back, the Confetti card offers:
- Clean up confetti cleans the whole pattern at the default strength (40%). Point at the button before you press it, and the score at the top shows what you'd get. It's one undo step.
- Show on the chart turns on ConfettiScope, so you can see what it would clean.
- Clean up by hand… opens this tool, for a different strength, a mask, or the brush.
If nothing is left to clean at 40%, the card says so. Auto mode can still go further at a higher strength.
On a tablet or phone, tap Check on the tool rail.
Auto mode
Use Auto when the one-press cleanup isn't enough, or when you want to see the result before you commit. Pick Clean Up Confetti in the left toolbar and choose Auto.
- Drag Strength. The chart previews the result as you go.
- Check the Result line: how many stitches stand alone now, and how many will after cleanup.
- Press Apply to keep it, or Cancel to leave the pattern as it was.
Nothing changes until you press Apply. Closing the panel or switching tools throws the preview away.
Auto cleans the whole pattern. To clean just one area, select it first and turn on Limit edits to selection in the selection menu.
Choosing a strength: low values only catch stitches that are completely alone. Higher values also merge small clusters, which makes for a calmer pattern but can soften small details like eye highlights. Start low, look at the preview, and raise it a step at a time.
Mask painting
Cleanup can't tell an eye's highlight or a thin line of lettering from a stray stitch. A mask fixes that: you paint where cleanup is allowed to work, and everything else is left alone. It's part of Auto mode.
- In Auto mode, turn on Draw mask.
- Paint over the areas you want cleaned, such as the background or the sky. They're tinted red.
- Check the preview and press Apply. Only stitches under the mask change.
While painting, Add and Erase switch between painting and removing mask, W / S change the brush size (1–20 stitches), and you can invert or clear the whole mask. Turn off Show mask to see the chart without the tint; the mask still applies. The preview updates every time you paint.
Usually it's quicker to mask the large areas you want cleaned than to cover the small ones you want to keep. If it's the other way round, paint the details and invert the mask.
Mask vs Keep details. Image import has a brush for the same job, Keep details, but it works the other way around: there you paint what cleanup must leave alone, here you paint where it may work.
Brush mode
For a few stray stitches in a spot you care about. Drag over speckles and they blend into the colors around them as you go. There's no preview and no Apply: each stroke changes the pattern right away and is its own undo step.
- Strength (10–100%): low only replaces stitches that are completely alone, higher also smooths small clusters. Around 50% is a good start.
- Brush size (1–20 stitches): W / S or ] / [.
Brush and Auto don't decide in quite the same way. Brush uses a simpler rule, so at the same strength it can catch stitches Auto would keep, especially along edges. Keep the brush away from outlines you want crisp.
ConfettiScope
ConfettiScope shows where the confetti is. Press Shift+C, or Show on the chart on the Check tab's Confetti card, and the chart fades so the problem stitches glow:
| Color | Means |
|---|---|
| Yellow | Completely alone, no neighbor of its color |
| Magenta | Nearly alone, one neighbor of its color |
| Cyan | Borderline, a few neighbors; often fine |
| No glow | Fine |
It only shows; it doesn't change any stitches. It stays on when you switch tools, so you can keep it on while cleaning and watch the glow disappear. It also works in image import. For the overall number, the Confetti card in the Check tab says what share of your stitches stand alone.
Confetti and your FLOW score
The F in FLOW is Fragmentation: how speckled the pattern is. It counts for a lot, because even a little confetti makes stitching feel fussy, so cleanup is often the quickest way to raise the score.
As a rough guide, an F below 60 will feel speckled to stitch, and below 40 is heavy confetti.
After you clean, the FLOW badge and the Check tab show the new score. In the Check tab you can see it before you press: point at Clean up confetti and the score reads If applied with the new number.
How cleanup picks a color
Each lone stitch becomes the color most common around it, leaving out its own color. If two colors tie, the one with the larger patch wins, so the stitch blends into the area it belongs to.
Auto mode is the careful one. It keeps high-contrast edges, so outlines and color borders survive even at higher strength, and it won't swap one speck for a new speck. Brush mode simply counts matching neighbors, which is quicker for touch-ups but less careful near edges.
Auto mode, the Check tab button and Clean up in image import all use the same decision, so 50% here cleans the same way as 50% in import.
Under the hood
Detection: each stitch is compared with its 8 neighbors, diagonals included. Brush mode counts same-color neighbors against the strength. Auto mode scores how stable each region is, weighing connectivity, diagonals and contrast, so strong edges are kept even at high strength.
Auto and import share one function. It sorts regions into stable anchors and confetti, skips high-contrast edges, and orders the replacements so a recolored speck can't leave a new speck behind. It then runs again on its own result, which catches specks freed up once a neighbor merged.
Brush strength: 10–30% replaces only stitches with no same-color neighbor, 40–60% also nearly-alone ones, 70–90% moderately broken-up stitches, and 100% almost everything outside solid blocks.
Fragmentation: F = 100 × e^(−isolation% × 0.15). 5% lone stitches gives F ≈ 47, 10% gives F ≈ 22. Fragmentation carries 30% of the FLOW score.
Tips & gotchas
- Start gentle. Apply at 30%, look, Undo, try 50%. Going straight to 100% can flatten small details.
- Brush has no Apply. Each stroke changes the pattern immediately, and Undo takes back one stroke.
- Auto needs Apply. Closing the panel or switching tools throws the preview away.
- The mask only works in Auto mode. The brush always changes what you drag over.
- Check eyes and lettering in the preview. Auto keeps strong edges, but small highlights can still look like confetti to it. Mask around them.
- Clean before you add backstitch. Cleanup only changes stitch colors; backstitch drawn on top stays where it is, so outlines you drew around a speck may end up outlining nothing.
- Strength and brush size are different things. Strength is how hard it cleans; brush size is how much you cover at once.