| Open your photo in Photoshop. |
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| Click Filter-->Pixelate-->Mosaic. Change cell size to 5 and click OK. |
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| Click Image-->Adjust-->Brightness/Contrast. Change brightness level to +35 (you can play around with this and use whatever looks best.) |
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| Click Image-->Adust-->Posterize. Change the level to a number between 5 and 20. Try different levels to find the lowest number that still looks good. This determines the number of floss colors you will be using. A lower number is easier to stitch, but you lose some quality. I have shown here the same image posterized at 5 levels and at 20 levels. As you can see, the image at posterized at 5 levels loses a lot of quality. The image posterized at 20 levels looks much better, but keep in mind that you will be using many more colors when stitching it. I find that a value of 10 to 15 provides a good balance of quality and ease of stitching. |
 5 levels  20 levels |