How to Read and Export Your Bead Pattern

Once PixoMosaic has turned an image into a grid, the rest of the job is reading that grid and building it. This guide explains the preview, the color counts, and how to take an export-ready chart to a pegboard.

Anatomy of a bead pattern preview

The preview is the pattern, drawn as a grid. Each cell is one bead. The color of that cell is the instruction: place that color there.

Look at the grid, rather than the source photo, when you decide whether the chart is finished. Check that the subject still has a readable outline, that large areas are not broken into confetti, and that you can point at a cell and know which bead it wants. The original image is a reference. The grid is what you build.

Use color counts as a sorting list

Color counts tell you how many beads of each color the current grid uses. Sort or buy from that list. Lay the colors out so your hands and the guide stay aligned.

A very small count is a signal. You might still place it, especially for an eye or a logo accent. You might also go back, lower the color limit, and preview again if that speck is not worth a separate pile. Either choice is easier when you have seen the number before you start.

Export-ready guides and printable charts

PixoMosaic describes export-ready guides and printable charts as part of the pattern you take to the pegboard. When the preview and the counts look right, export the guide from the editor and keep it next to the board.

Follow the chart on a screen or from a printout, whichever lets you see one cell clearly. Use the export action the editor provides, and keep the color counts with the chart so you are not guessing how much of each color you still need.

Build large boards in sections

On a small piece, you can place beads in reading order, row by row. On a large board, finish one region before you move on. A block of background, a face, or a letter is a natural section.

1. Pick a region with a clear edge on the chart.
2. Place that color until the region is full.
3. Find the next empty cell from a corner you already finished.
4. Keep the color counts nearby so a pile running low is obvious.

Place beads firmly enough that the pegboard does not shed work while you reach for the next color. The chart does not change while you build. Only the board does.

Switch to Blank Canvas for touch-ups

Image to Beads starts from a file and generates the grid. Blank Canvas is the open board for drawing a pattern by hand. Use it when you want to add a letter, repair an edge, or design an icon that never came from a photo.

Many makers generate a portrait or logo first, then open a blank board for small freehand pieces. You do not have to force every idea through a photo.

When the chart looks muddy

Muddy charts usually mean the photo still has more shades than the board can show, or the grid is fine enough to keep noise. Reduce maximum colors, reduce pattern width, or crop tighter around the subject, then preview the grid again.

If two neighboring colors are hard to tell apart in your beads, simplify until the chart uses colors you can separate on the table. A clearer, smaller palette can be a finished project. A photo rendered as dozens of near-identical grays is a sorting problem.

When the grid reads cleanly, export the guide and place beads one cell at a time.