Dog Needlepoint Kits have to be one of the most popular themes at NeedlePaint.  Not only do we put them on our homepage, but our craft space and warehouse also is dog friendly with normally 1-3 dogs here on any given day.

As they are such great friends, I’m writing today to help people who have amazing photos of their dogs to select the best photos for needlepointing.

First of all, face images look best, but you do NOT need an actual close up photo.   So, I cropped the image of only Rusty’s face to 267 x 277 pixels. (upper left)

Rusty on a Hike

Rusty as a 10 x 9.5" NeedlePoint Canvas Preview

OK, so that is not as good as I hoped.

But, I think there is a lesson here.  Lets go back to the original image.  The background is very similar color to the dog, which when transferred to needlepoint, will loose a lot of contrast.  Also, the shadow below the dogs nose effects the dogs face on the canvas.

So, lets try another.  This one is a closer image, again, the top of the head came out well, but the bottom of the image is too dark.

Another Rusty, Closer Up! The cropped image was 533 x 531 Pixels

Hmm.  Still not what I want.  I think trying to focus even closer on the face may help.

Our Best Rusty Today

Yep, it looks better.  So, cropping very close to the face looks better to me.  This is a 10 x 9″ canvas preview, with 16 colors.  The cropped image was 408 x 363

Overall, I have to say, that I tried a lot of uploading today and I learned a few things.

#1.  Photo Image size should be at least 250 pixels x 250 Pixels for a 10″ x 10″ canvas

#2.  Images with a contrasting background seem to look better.

#3.  Dogs with markings really look great!  See the image of my friends husky.

Bear - Cropped Image size 311 x 390 pixels

On a final note, we are soon adding DMC threads to our site.  This will also help our current situation, because DMC offers more colors, especially in the lighter pinks, browns, and creams.  We’ve noticed improvement on images of people, which is the main reason for this, but I think Rusty will also look better!

If you are using NeedlePaint and having trouble, you can email me your image, and I will adjust it and try to help!  My email address is seth (at) needlepaint.com