This app is all about enabling you to create needlework patterns from your own images - whether something you designed, a favourite photo, or something you found on the web. It doesn't help with creating images - there are plenty of great design and image manipulation apps out there - you probably have several on your Mac; the web is full of them.
However, once you've identified an image you would like to turn into a project, that's where Stitch This!
can help.
The process is made as straightforward as it can be - and the app's layout is designed to take you through a few simple steps with as few clicks as possible to create the output to start your project. Here are those steps:
1. Load and resize your image
Open up an image of your choice, and resize it - so that it makes a workable project. The resized image is shown alongside the original, at the same size, to show you how much detail would be lost in resizing it. It also reduces the number of colours in the original to 256 or less in this same step - usually without any noticeable loss of colour detail (photos of faces can sometimes be a challenge).
2. Match to a range of threads
Choose your range of threads, and your preferred number of colours to work with. The app will then show you what the image would look like with that number of colours from that range, alongside the resized one from the previous step. You can increase or decrease that number until you have a workable image.
3. Check the symbols allocated
You can create your own set of your favourite symbols, and then use that; however, the app has a large default set, and will allocate from those if you haven't. (It does try to eliminate symbols which are visually similar, to avoid confusion when working, but that can be very subjective.) Then you can define which colour appears on the charts as an empty square.
4. Configure the output and generate
Supply a few details about what the printed output will look like, what materials you want to use, and then click the Generate button - and await your PDF.
The Helpbook (Help | Stitch This! Help) has detailed explanations of the functioning of the app, and should always be your first recourse when attempting to understand how or why it behaves the way it does.
THE TECHNICAL BIT
The project was developed using Xcode and Swift 3. Yes, I know - it's ages old, but it's the latest version that my ageing MacBook can take.
If you want to bring it into the present decade, please feel free - you can download the source code from the Download link in the menu. All I ask is that the dedication and the statement concerning the Alpha Course must remain in any future releases. Feel free to add your own name and/or dedication if you have made substantive improvements to the usability or functioning of this app.
Since it utilises the Freeimage library, which is open source, this app is also open source, and must remain so.
