| I want to… | Try |
|---|---|
| Trace outlines onto a blank pattern | Below stitches, opacity around 40–60%, then Lock |
| See where my pattern differs from the photo | Above stitches, below grid, and tap U on and off |
| Count squares against the picture | Keep the picture under the grid so the grid lines stay on top |
| Line up backstitch with fine details | Above stitches & grid, below backstitches, so your lines stay visible |
| Use only part of a picture | Crop in the Overlay tab, or in the picture's right-click menu |
| Straighten a crooked photo | Drag the round handle above it; it snaps to upright when you are close |
| Combine several pictures | Add image in the Overlay tab, then stack and fade them |
| Make a picture fit a different shape | Switch off Keep proportions, then drag a corner or an edge |
Image Overlay
Lay your photo, a drawing or several pictures over the chart to trace or check against. Move, resize, turn, flip and crop each one. They never print.
- Shortcut
- U
- Where to find it
- Left toolbar → Image Overlay
Keyboard & modifiers
- U
- Show or hide all overlay images
- Shift
- While moving or resizing: snap to whole cells. While turning: snap to 15° steps
What overlay images are for
Overlay images show your original pictures on top of (or underneath) the chart while you edit, like tracing paper. They're there for reference only: you can't stitch on them, and they never show up in your PDF.
Stitchers use them to:
- Trace a picture by hand. Start a blank pattern, put a photo or drawing behind it, and stitch or backstitch along its outlines.
- Splice ideas together. Bring in several pictures, turn and crop each one, and trace the face from one and the flowers from another.
- Check a conversion. After turning a photo into a pattern, flick the photo on and off to see whether the eyes, the lettering or a small detail survived.
- Compare colors. While you swap threads, check them against the photo they came from.
Press U any time to show or hide them all, whatever tool you're using.
I want to…
Show the images
Press U or click Image Overlay in the left toolbar.
- Pattern made from a photo: that photo appears straight away. It's saved with the pattern.
- No picture yet: open the tool and choose Choose an image to pick one from your computer.
With the tool open, the Overlay tab appears in the right panel. It lists every picture, topmost first: a small preview, its name, and a button to show or hide it, and a menu button.
Pressing U hides everything if anything is showing, and shows everything otherwise. The eye on a row hides just that picture.
Add more images
Click Add image at the foot of the Overlay tab and choose a picture. It lands on top of the stack, selected, at 60% opacity, ready to be placed.
- You can have up to ten overlay images in a pattern.
- The first picture is free. More than one is part of Plus and Personal Lifetime. Without them the button shows a lock and tells you where to find out more.
- Large pictures are shrunk to a size that keeps the pattern light. If one can't be shrunk enough, you'll be told.
- Pictures you add are saved with the pattern and sync with it, like the original photo.
The original photo can be hidden and replaced (Change image… in its menu) but not removed: it's the picture the pattern was made from.
Line it up
A picture starts fitted to the pattern. While the tool is open, every picture has a blue border so you can see where it is; the one under your pointer lights up bold and white to show you can click it. To work on one, select it by clicking it on the chart or its row in the list. Handles appear around the selected picture:
- Drag the picture to move it.
- Drag a corner to make it bigger or smaller. It keeps its shape.
- Drag the round handle above it to turn it. Hold Shift to turn in 15° steps. Near upright it snaps on its own. A small label shows the angle as you turn.
- A small label also shows the size while you resize, in cells and in your units (inches or centimeters).
The Position menu in the tool's options places the selected picture for you:
- Fit: the whole picture fits inside the pattern. After you've dragged it, this reads Fit (reset) and puts it back.
- Fill: the picture covers the whole pattern; the edges may run off.
- 1px per stitch: one pixel of the picture per stitch. Useful for pixel art, where each pixel should be one stitch.
Once it's where you want it, click Lock (in the panel's footer, or on the picture's row menu). Dragging and handles then do nothing until you unlock it, so you can trace without nudging the picture. Fit and Fill still work while locked.
Turn, flip and crop
All three work on the selected picture, on every plan.
- Turn: drag the round handle, or use Rotate left 90° and Rotate right 90° in the panel or a row's menu.
- Flip: Flip left–right and Flip vertically mirror the picture. Useful when a reference is the wrong way round for your design. Both are in the picture's right-click menu; Flip left–right is also a button in the panel.
- Crop: click Crop, then drag an edge or corner of the box to cut away what you don't need. The picture's original edges stay drawn as a dashed line so you can see how far each side can go, and the other pictures are left out of the way. Drag an edge back out to bring the rest back. Click Done cropping (or press Enter) to keep the crop, or Cancel (or Esc) to put the picture back as it was. A whole crop is one undo step.
- Reset: the panel's Reset button puts the picture back upright, unmirrored and uncropped.
Cropping never cuts the saved picture, so nothing is lost, and the cropped part stays exactly where it was on the chart.
Stretch an image
Pictures keep their proportions by default, so a face never gets squashed by accident. To change a picture's shape on purpose:
- Select it in the Overlay tab.
- Switch Keep proportions off.
- Drag a corner to stretch it in both directions, or one of the four edge handles to stretch along one side.
Switch Keep proportions back on and corners resize evenly again. The choice is saved per picture.
Stack and fade
The list shows the stack from top to bottom. Drag the grip on the left of a row to move a picture up or down; the menu has Move up and Move down too. Later pictures draw over earlier ones.
Each picture has its own Opacity, in the panel's footer for the selected one: 0% is invisible, 100% is solid. For tracing, around 40–60% lets you see the picture and your stitches together. For checking colors, go higher.
Where the pictures sit relative to the stitches is one setting for all of them, Layer, at the top of the panel:
- Below stitches: your stitches stay solid and the pictures show only in empty squares. Best for tracing onto a blank or half-finished pattern.
- Above stitches, below grid (the default): the pictures sit right over your stitches, so places where the pattern drifts from the original stand out. The grid stays on top for counting.
- Above stitches & grid: the pictures cover everything, grid included.
- Above backstitches: the pictures cover your backstitch too. Shown only for crafts that have backstitch, where the option above reads Above stitches & grid, below backstitches.
When you resize the chart
Overlay images stay lined up with the stitches. When you add or remove rows or columns, resize or crop the chart, or scale it, every picture moves or scales along with the stitches, and undo puts them back. A picture you never moved stays over the stitches it covered; it doesn't refit to the new size.
If you remove rows or columns from the middle of a picture, the picture moves with the stitches around its centre. The part on the far side of the removed band can end up a little off.
On a phone or tablet
On a phone, or a tablet held upright, the list opens in a sheet from the bottom of the screen.
- Tap Overlay in the tool list. The sheet opens with the same list you'd see on the desktop.
- Close the sheet to work on the chart. Drag, resize and turn with your finger; the handles are the same.
- Tap Images in the options strip any time to bring the list back.
The sheet can be dragged up for more room. On a wide tablet held sideways, the Overlay tab sits in the panel beside the chart instead.
Remove or undo
Open a picture's menu (the three dots) and choose Remove. The picture goes away from the chart; your stitches aren't touched. The original photo can only be hidden, never removed.
Everything you do with overlay images can be undone with Ctrl/Cmd + Z: adding, removing, hiding, moving, resizing, turning, flipping, cropping, reordering, locking and changing opacity. A whole drag is one step.
Tips & gotchas
- Hold Shift to snap. While you move or resize a picture that isn't turned, it lands on whole cells. A turned picture doesn't snap, because its edges don't run along the grid.
- Click empty chart or press Esc to deselect, so no picture's handles are in the way. While you crop, Esc cancels the crop instead. Click a picture to select it again.
- Right-click a picture for the same menu as the menu button on its row: turn, flip, crop, lock, move up or down, change or remove.
- Center guides. While you move a picture, teal lines and a small "center" label appear when it sits on the chart's center line. The selection, a motif, text and a pending shape show them too.
- U works from any tool, even mid-drawing. You don't need to leave the brush to check the photo.
- Lock before tracing. It saves you from shifting a picture halfway through.
- It never prints. PDF and image exports, including the cover image, leave overlay images out, whatever their settings. They are also hidden in the progress tracker and the export screen, and come back when you return to the editor.
- Settings stay with the pattern. Placement, turn, crop, opacity, order and locks are saved, so each pattern can be set up differently.
- Pictures you add are stored beside the pattern. If you open a pattern on a device that hasn't downloaded one yet, its row says it isn't available there until it syncs.
- Blurry when zoomed in? The saved copies are smaller than the originals, so very large patterns can show them soft.