How CozyBead works
Four steps happen between your photo and a pattern you can build. Only the first one needs you.
You upload a photo
Anything you like the look of. We shrink it, keep it private, and never use it for anything but your pattern.
You choose how
Bead the photo and nothing is redrawn: it is reduced straight to beads, instantly and free, with sliders for size, bead set, color count and blending. Or have it drawn as a little character in six styles, which takes about a minute and uses one conversion.
If you chose the sticker: six styles get drawn
Each one is drawn as chunky, flat-color pixel art on purpose. Soft shading and fine detail look lovely on screen and turn to mush in beads, so we never ask for them.
We find the real grid
Generated pixel art only looks square, the blocks drift and the edges are soft. We detect the true lattice underneath and rebuild the art at its native size, so one pixel becomes exactly one bead. This is the step that takes a sticker from about 9,500 beads down to about 1,130, and it comes out sharper.
Colors get matched
Every bead is matched in CIE Lab, which is how eyes compare color rather than how screens store it. For photos we go further: the image is clustered first so the color budget is spent where your picture actually lives, a portrait gets several skin tones instead of one stray blue, and we stop adding colors once another one stops earning its bag.
Then it comes to you
Download the chart and shopping list free, or have the whole thing posted: every bead counted from your pattern and sorted by color, printed charts, a pegboard and ironing paper.
Free, and no account until you want to download.