Sprite Stitch Board!

Is there any way to convert/swap files between various cross-stitch programs (namely, PC Stitch and KG Chart)?

I'm seriously thinking of purchasing PC Stitch especially since KG Chart lacks the "highlight this color" feature, but I've got a number of patterns that are useless if I swap over...

Or does anyone have any stitching programs that they might recommend? I've tried the aforementioned, as well as XStitch and Ryijy Stitch Designer (sadly useless to me).

My best strategy is having the original sprite/pattern as a 1 stitch/pixel image and importing it to both programs. I think you can do this with both free-viewer-thing PC stitch and KG chart. Blackmageheart helped me do this with my Dragonforce banner design because KGchart was way too purple-heavy in its color selections (which I'm still waiting on the cloth to start stitching, BOO).

As for converting from one to another, if you don't mind the colors, you can export an image from KGchart, size it down to 50% in something like gimp or paint, and put that into PC stitch.

Asinine wrote:Is there any way to convert/swap files between various cross-stitch programs (namely, PC Stitch and KG Chart)?

I'm seriously thinking of purchasing PC Stitch especially since KG Chart lacks the "highlight this color" feature, but I've got a number of patterns that are useless if I swap over...

Or does anyone have any stitching programs that they might recommend? I've tried the aforementioned, as well as XStitch and Ryijy Stitch Designer (sadly useless to me).

I'm not sure if you can convert as such, probably just export/import images. As to other programs, there's a thread somewhere on these forums (I forget exactly where lol) about different cross stitch programs, have a look for it.

I know what you mean about the highlight colour thing, I found it really useful when I started on my craft swap stitching, but then later I found I didn't need to use it so much. You could get the free trial version of PCStitch, however you can't save or print your patterns and that gets a bit annoying when you have to constantly import the image every time you wanna sit n stitch :O
Even if you do buy PCStitch, hang on to KG-Chart (and your patterns) as it won't be defunct - I still use it regularly. I'm actually using it now

Cerity wrote:My best strategy is having the original sprite/pattern as a 1 stitch/pixel image and importing it to both programs. I think you can do this with both free-viewer-thing PC stitch and KG chart. Blackmageheart helped me do this with my Dragonforce banner design because KGchart was way too purple-heavy in its color selections (which I'm still waiting on the cloth to start stitching, BOO).

As Cerity does, I also import my image into both pattern programs and I see which gives the best results. We did it for the banner she mentioned, cos like she says, KG-Chart was WAY too purple. It was much better in PCStitch though. And of course it does work the other way around - I imported a sprite into PCStitch thinking it'd pwn KG but as it turned out the KG-Chart one was better!
I like KG-Chart for simple sprites and images, it usually gives nice bright colours that really pop IRL. PCStitch I like to use for more complex images and it often gives better colour matching for them.

I hope that helps!

Oh and @Cerity BOO for slow moving cloth - we needs that banner!!

blackmageheart wrote:As to other programs, there's a thread somewhere on these forums (I forget exactly where lol) about different cross stitch programs, have a look for it.

Yes, it was a great reference for me, until I realised that they cannot seem to agree on any colors... But, that's DMC's fault for not labeling their product accordingly.

blackmageheart wrote:I know what you mean about the highlight colour thing, I found it really useful when I started on my craft swap stitching, but then later I found I didn't need to use it so much.

I found the solution to this (just change whatever color I wish to highlight to 3804); now it's a matter of me debating on which actually looks good. I know I've posted a few other questions around here, and now I've got too many things I want to do. So I have figured I need to sort out my program desires first; can't be printing up good patterns if I don't like the programs!

Cerity wrote:My best strategy is having the original sprite/pattern as a 1 stitch/pixel image and importing it to both programs. I think you can do this with both free-viewer-thing PC stitch and KG chart. Blackmageheart helped me do this with my Dragonforce banner design because KGchart was way too purple-heavy in its color selections (which I'm still waiting on the cloth to start stitching, BOO).

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. But the problem is that both (KG Chart and PC Stitch) make the picture look *great*, but the difference in colors are big enough that *I think* that it can't look exactly the same using two different color schemes. That, and often one will make a picture look too [one color], like Cerity mentioned with the purple.

blackmageheart wrote:I like KG-Chart for simple sprites and images, it usually gives nice bright colours that really pop IRL. PCStitch I like to use for more complex images and it often gives better colour matching for them.

Yeah, see I'm using a mixture of sprites and large picture imports. I try to get most of the dirty resizing work in photoshop before I import it into one of the programs, but I'm finding that they really reduce the size much better than any of the options of my outdated PS version 5 does.

blackmageheart wrote:I hope that helps!

Yep, thanks both of you! I think I'm going to just put off purchasing PC Stitch for now... but I'll definitely not get rid of either, no matter what I choose in the end.