Guide
How to use the generator
Four steps, no account, and you see the result before you decide anything. This page explains what each choice changes, so you are not guessing.
1. Choose your photo
A JPG, PNG or WebP from your phone is fine. What matters is not resolution but light: a photo lit from one side turns into shape, a flash photo turns flat.
2. Choose a canvas size
The size decides how large the painted areas are. Bigger canvas, bigger areas, easier painting. For a first canvas, 40x50 cm is the comfortable choice.
3. Choose how many colours
24 gives a bold, graphic result and paints fastest. 36 is balanced. 48 keeps subtle shading but needs a large canvas to be worth it.
4. Look at the result
You get the painted preview and the numbered pattern side by side. Not happy? Change the colour count and run it again — it is free and unlimited.
Getting a better result
- Crop in close. The tighter the crop, the more of the pattern is spent on what you care about.
- One subject, quiet background. A busy background eats colours the face needed.
- Keep the orientation: a landscape photo on a landscape canvas, a portrait on a portrait canvas.
- For a face, go one size bigger than feels necessary. Eyes need small areas, and small areas need room.
Questions we get
Do more colours always look better?
No. More colours means more and smaller areas, not more detail in your photo. On a small canvas the extra areas become too small to paint.
I am between two canvas sizes. Which one?
The bigger one, nearly always. Larger areas are more comfortable to paint and the finished piece reads better from a distance.
Why does my photo look blurry in the preview?
The preview shows your photo reduced to flat colour areas, which is what you will actually paint. Soft edges there mean the photo has little contrast — try a tighter crop or a photo with clearer light.
Is it really free?
Generating and looking is free, without an account and without a limit on tries. You only pay if you order the kit or the printable pattern.
Paint by numbers for beginners, step by step
Yes, it is a good first project — there is no drawing in it. Every area is outlined and numbered, so the only thing you have to get right is staying inside a line. Here is the whole evening, in order.
- Lay it out: the canvas, the pots, a jar of water, kitchen roll and a lamp on your writing hand's side. That is everything you need — brushes and paints come in the box.
- Open the darkest pot first and find every area with that number. Do not go looking for number 1; go looking for one colour.
- Start top left and work down to bottom right, mirrored if you are left-handed. Your hand then never rests on wet paint.
- Paint thinly. If the number still shows through, that is fine — a second thin coat covers it once the first is dry, which takes about twenty minutes.
- Close the pot before you open the next one. An open pot of acrylic is unusable within an hour.
- Stop when you want to. A half-finished canvas keeps for weeks as long as the pots are shut.
For a first canvas, 40x50 cm at 24 or 36 colours is the comfortable combination. Smaller than 30x40 cm with a face in it is where beginners get stuck, because the areas around the eyes end up smaller than the brush.
Your first canvas: where to start painting
Start with the largest areas and the darkest colour, then work towards the small light ones. Two reasons: large areas let you find your rhythm while a mistake is still easy to cover, and dark paint hides the edge of the colour next to it better than light paint does.
- Work colour by colour, not number by number. One pot, every area with that number, then the next pot. That saves you hundreds of brush washes.
- Top left to bottom right if you are right-handed, mirrored if you are left-handed. Your hand then never rests on paint that is still wet.
- Two thin coats beat one thick one. Acrylic on canvas dries within twenty minutes, and a thin coat keeps the printed number readable while you work.
- Close every pot right after use. An open pot of acrylic is unusable within an hour.
Reckon on roughly ten to fifteen hours for a 40x50 cm canvas with 36 colours, spread over a few evenings. That is not a race, and stopping halfway costs nothing as long as the pots are shut.
The mistakes that cost the most time
- A second coat on paint that is not dry. It lifts the first coat straight off the canvas and you are worse off than before.
- A portrait on a canvas under 30x40 cm. The areas around the eyes end up smaller than your brush, and that is where the likeness lives.
- Too much water on the brush. Acrylic thinned down runs across the printed lines and takes the numbers with it.
- A backlit photo. The generator can only work with the light that is in the photo, so a dark face stays a dark face at any colour count.
- Comparing your canvas to the preview from ten centimetres away. Both are made to be looked at from two metres.
Not sure whether your photo has enough light? Run it through the generator first — the preview shows you exactly what flattens out, before you have spent anything.
Ready to try it
Upload a photo, pick your colours and look at the pattern. If it is not right, change one setting and run it again.
Open the generator