Brando

[soundman]

I looked everywhere for a pattern of Marlon Brando as The Godfather. I couldn't find it, so I captured a "still" from the movie, converted it to a jpeg and manipulated the image from there using Irfanview and Paintbox. It was painstakingly tough to go through and "paint" out pixel by pixel, but the results are awesome!

Does anyone have advice on an easier way to create patterns on a computer, or is this the best?

[Daryl185]

Soundman as has been discusst in many threads here what you have done is a copyright infringement by taking a picture from the movie and making a pattern of it, if your going to sell it it will be a violation of the movie companies copyright laws, just giving you a heads up

[Gill]

I'm not sure that's so, Daryl. You may be right, but much will depend on the wording of the copyright.

Gill

[soundman]

Thanks for the "heads-up" Daryl. I don't ever intend on selling or distributing either the pattern or the piece...I made it for myself because it's one of my favorite movies. It looks great on my office wall and it's a great conversation starter with my clients.

However, back to the question of making patterns on a computer...is the way I did it the best way or is there an easier way to convert pictures to patterns? I want to do something similar with my kids pictures and I want to be sure I'm not causing myself more work than needed.

[BobD (Archive)]

I'd suggest using the trace function with Inkscape (an open source version of Adobe Illustrator). It's free, and can eliminate a lot of that tedious work. But it does require a bit of a learning curve...

Gill has more experience with the software than I do.

Bob Duncan
Technical Editor

[Minnesota scroller]

Andy Deane, one of the best pattern designers, has a good pattern tutorial online. It's also FREE. You can find it here. http://www.freewebtown.com/80ArtDesigns/page1.html

[Gill]

Gill has more experience with the software than I do.

I'm a long way from mastering it! If I could help, I would, but it would be much easier, soundman, if there were pictures of what you started with and what you found so tedious.

Gill

[soundman]

but it would be much easier, soundman, if there were pictures of what you started with and what you found so tedious.

Gill

Well, I started with an image as a jpeg...when I open the jpeg, my computer defaults to IrfanView. I went to "Image" and selected "Decrease Color Depth" and then selected "2 colors - black/white". After this, I resized the jpeg to 800x600 pixels, which was very blurry so I then sharpened the image in another option. The image was still quite pixilated, but I saved the file as is.

I then opened Paintbox and re-opened the file. I zoomed in on different parts of the image and painted out individual pixels, some black/some white, thereby eliminating the blurriness of the image. I kept zooming out often to supervise how the image was evolving. Then I had to put on my "scroller's cap" to adjust parts of the image to make sense as a wood project...ie: making sure the cuts aren't too close that they compromise the strength of the wood, how to convey shadowing, etc. When it was done, I printed the image and you all know how to go about the rest.

This was very meticulous work and the result was fantastic, so I'm glad I put forth the effort to make it perfect. However, the entire process of creating this pattern took longer than the actual scrolling of the wood! That's why I'm wondering if there is an easier way.