Photo2PatternFree crochet pattern generator
A crochet graph with the rows written out
Drop a picture and this builds the graph for a blanket worked flat — as rows with a turn at each end, or corner to corner in blocks. It costs nothing and wants no account. You get the grid, the exact stitch count for every lettered color, and the written line-by-line underneath it, with the direction marked on each row because the work turns and every second row reads the other way. Row counts are corrected for your own gauge, so a chart that measures 100 stitches finishes the width your swatch predicted rather than the width the graph paper suggested.
- 100% free
- No signup
- 2 to 8 colors
- Written row-by-row
- Gauge-corrected rows
Press Ctrl+V anywhere on the page to drop in the photo you already copied out of a phone gallery — no need to click the field first.
This is the starting chain, minus the turning chain. At 13 to four inches it finishes 30.8 in wide.
2 to 8, picked out of your own picture and lettered A to D. Every one is a skein you buy, so the number is a budget before it is a design decision.
Every cell takes its own nearest color. Flat areas stay flat and the color count stays low — the right choice for anything worked by hand.
The council files 11–14 single crochets to four inches here, and hooks of 5.5–6.5 mm (I-9 to K-10 1/2).
From your own swatch, worked in the stitch you plan to use.
Nobody publishes this one — the council’s table has a stitch column and no row column at all, for any of its eight categories. Count it off the same swatch.
How to chart a photograph for a graphgan
Your own row gauge is what changes the finished shape, and it is the field most people leave alone.
Say how the blanket is built before you size it
Worked in rows means one stitch per cell and a turn at each end. Corner to corner means one block per cell, worked along diagonals from a corner, and it changes the row count you need for the same picture because a C2C block is nearly square while a single crochet is not. The two prefill different gauges for that reason: 13 stitches and 15 rows to four inches for rows, four blocks each way for C2C.
Put your own swatch numbers in, especially the vertical one
The stitch figure prefills from the Craft Yarn Council category you pick, but the row figure cannot: the council's table has a stitch column and no row column for any of its eight weights. Work a swatch, count stitches across four inches and rows up four inches, and type both. The chart's row count is the square-grid count multiplied by rows-per-inch over stitches-per-inch, so the vertical number is the one that decides whether the finished blanket is the shape of the photograph.
Read the joins before you buy the yarn
Under the written pattern is the total number of color joins and the row that carries the most. That figure, not the picture, is what decides whether this is a weekend or a winter — a photographic image at eight colors routinely produces several thousand of them. Drop a color, widen the stitch count so runs get longer, or turn blending off, and watch the number move before you commit.
Technical specifications
| Chart width | 20 to 200 stitches or blocks across. At the prefilled 13 stitches to four inches, 200 stitches finishes 61.5 in wide — past the 50-inch throw in the blanket-size table |
|---|---|
| Constructions | 2: worked in rows with a turn at each end, and corner to corner in blocks. A C2C chart of C by R has exactly C + R − 1 diagonal rows, min(C,R) of them increasing and |C − R| straight |
| Color list | 2 to 8, chosen out of your picture by median cut in Oklab and lettered A to H the way a printed pattern names them. No dyer's catalog is quoted — this site ships no yarn color table and will not invent a shade number you could order |
| Gauge prefills | 13 stitches and 15 rows to four inches, both editable. The stitch figure is the midpoint of the Craft Yarn Council's 11-to-14 range for a medium (4) yarn — a 27% spread, so 100 stitches finishes anywhere between 28.6 and 36.4 in. The row figure is a common worsted swatch and not a standard: the council publishes no row gauge for any of its eight categories |
| Aspect correction | Rows = square-grid rows × (rows per 4 in ÷ stitches per 4 in). At the prefilled gauges that multiplier is 1.15, so a square photo at 100 stitches charts 115 rows |
| Written output | One line per row: the direction it is worked, the runs in the order the hook meets them, the total and the color joins in it. Downloads as plain text alongside the chart PNG and the color CSV |
| Printed panels | 38 stitches by 55 rows a sheet — A4 less a 10 mm margin at 5 mm a cell — with two cells of every neighbor repeated at the join |
| What leaves the browser | Nothing. The photograph is decoded in this tab, quantized in this tab and charted in this tab, with no request carrying any part of it |
Frequently asked questions
Why is my row count higher than my stitch count on a square photo?
Because a single crochet is wider than it is tall, so it takes more rows than stitches to cover the same distance. At the prefilled 13 stitches and 15 rows to four inches, a stitch is 0.308 in wide and a row is 0.267 in high, and a square picture at 100 stitches needs 115 rows to finish square. Charts drawn on plain graph paper skip this and come out squat — the classic sign is a face that looks fine on paper and wide in yarn. Corner to corner does not have the problem, which is most of why graphghans migrated to it.
How many diagonal rows does a corner-to-corner piece have?
Exactly the stitch count plus the row count minus one. A 60 by 80 block chart is 139 diagonal rows: you increase for 60 of them, hold at 60 blocks wide for 20, then decrease for 59. The page prints those four numbers under the pattern because they are the ones people lose track of — the moment to stop increasing on both ends is not visible in the picture, only in the shape of the chart.
Which way do I read the chart on the return row?
The opposite way to the row before it, because you turned the work. Row 1 runs right to left, row 2 left to right, and so on to the top. This is the single commonest way a graphgan goes wrong: read every row right to left and each even row comes out mirrored, which shows up as a zigzagged edge on anything with a vertical line in it. The written pattern here labels the direction on every line so there is nothing to remember.
When exactly do I change color?
On the last yarn over of the stitch before the change, not at the start of the new one. Draw the new color through the final two loops of the old stitch and the loop sitting on your hook is already the new color when the next stitch begins. Change afterwards instead and the top of that last stitch wears the wrong color, which puts a one-stitch fringe of the old shade along every color boundary in the blanket.
Should I carry the resting color or cut it?
Carry it when the gap is short and the fabric can take the bulk; cut it when the color will not reappear for many rows. The join count under the pattern gives you the number to decide with: doubling it is the worst case for tails to weave in if you cut at every boundary. Carried yarn behind a light color also shows through as a shadow, which is why a chart that looks clean in dark shades can look grubby in cream.
What makes one picture far slower to crochet than another?
The number of color boundaries in it, which the join count under the pattern measures directly. Flat areas with clean edges — a silhouette, a logo, a pet against a plain wall — give long runs and few joins, so most rows are three or four stretches of one color. Soft light gives short runs everywhere, and blending makes that dramatically worse because it scatters single stitches of a second shade through what were solid blocks. If the count is frightening, raise the stitch width so features get more room, before you reach for fewer colors.
Does the number of colors change how much yarn I need?
Barely, in total, but it changes what you buy. The blanket is the same number of stitches whichever way you split them, so the total yardage moves only through the tails. What changes is the shopping list: eight colors means eight skeins and most of seven of them left over, because the yardage column shows a rare color needing forty yards out of a two-hundred-yard skein. That is the argument for four colors on a first graphgan, and the column is there so it is an argument with numbers in it.
About charting colorwork for a hook
A graphgan chart is a promise about a physical object, and the promise usually breaks in the vertical. Plain graph paper has square cells; a single crochet does not. Work a 100-by-100 chart in worsted and the blanket comes out around 31 in wide and 27 in tall, because a stitch at 13 to four inches is 0.308 in across while a row at 15 to four inches is 0.267 in high. Everything drawn on that grid is squashed by the same 13%, which nobody notices in a geometric repeat and everybody notices on a face. The fix is arithmetic rather than art — multiply the row count by rows-per-inch over stitches-per-inch — but it needs a number the yarn label does not carry. The Craft Yarn Council’s standard, which is where the stitch figure on this page comes from, publishes a stitch gauge for all eight of its categories and a row gauge for none of them. That is the number to go and measure, and the gauge calculator will turn a swatch into it. If you want to work the other way round and start from a finished bed size, the blanket calculator goes from inches back to a starting chain.
Corner to corner exists largely because of the paragraph above. A C2C block is three double crochets and a three-chain space, and it comes out close enough to square that a plain grid is honest again — which is why almost every photograph-sized graphgan on the internet is C2C. The price is that the chart is no longer worked in the direction it is drawn. You start at a corner and travel along diagonals, and the number of those diagonals is the stitch count plus the row count minus one: a 60 by 80 chart is 139 rows, not 80. The phases follow from the same two numbers — you increase for 60 diagonals, hold at 60 blocks for 20, decrease for 59 — and mistaking the moment to stop increasing is the single most common C2C failure, because the picture gives you no clue that it is coming. This page computes those four figures from the chart rather than leaving them to be counted, which is the difference between a chart and a pattern.
The other thing charts hide is the join count. Every boundary between two colors in a row is a place where you either change yarn or carry one behind the other, and a photograph produces vastly more of them than a drawing does. Most generators will not tell you how many, so the fabric arrives as a surprise: thick where three strands were carried, or fringed with tails where they were cut. The number sits under the written pattern here, along with the row that carries the worst of it, and it moves when you change the color count or turn blending on — blending scatters single stitches of a second shade through areas that were solid, which is exactly what colorwork cannot afford. Note also that the palette here is taken out of your own picture and lettered A to H rather than matched to a brand: this site ships no yarn color table, and a made-up shade number is worse than none because you can order it. When you want color worked in the round instead, where the design skews as it climbs, that is the tapestry crochet page; for the same picture on needles, with the different stitch proportion knitting brings, the knitting chart. And if the join count has talked you out of yarn altogether, the same picture on a pegboard is the Perler bead page.
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Where the photograph is opened
Your picture is opened by JavaScript running in the tab you are reading this in. It is never uploaded, never sent to a server and never stored anywhere — there is no upload step to undo, because there is no upload. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.
The written pattern, the color letters and the gauge you typed live in this tab only. Reopening the page tomorrow starts from an empty grid, so the written pattern and the CSV are the only copies that will exist — take them before you close it.