Convert photo to coloring by numbers. Free coloring software for kids! Selection of art materials

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Today, we want to share with you a great program for kids that you can download for free. The program is a coloring book in which your child (and maybe you too) will be able to color funny pictures with different characters. The program is very easy to use and is perfect for children aged 6-12.

An overview of the Kea Coloring Book coloring program.

The official website of the program is www.keacoloringbook.com

Versions are available for both Windows and Android devices. An iOS version should be coming soon.

Download the program for Windows.

To download the program, follow this link and click "Download now".

Downloading the program

After the program has downloaded, run the installation file. If you're having trouble downloading, you can

We install the program.

There should be no problems installing the program. Follow the instructions below. If you have any problems with the installation, then you can ask them in the comments to this article!

So, if you did everything according to the instructions, then the program should start automatically. In the future, you will be able to find a shortcut to the program on the desktop.

Overview of the main menu of the program.

The program has many pluses, but there is one BIG minus - it's music! Let's turn it off.

To do this, click on the settings button in the upper right corner and reduce the volume of the music using the slider.

Settings

The left column of the main menu presents the color palette. Pay attention to the two green arrows at the top. They allow you to switch between color columns.

In the lower left corner are the drawing tools. Pay attention to the test tube, with which you can mix the colors in the palette on the right. To do this, just point the test tube at the colors and drag them onto the palette.

Painting by numbers is a way of creating a picture in which the image is divided into shapes, each of which is labeled with a number corresponding to a certain color. You paint in each area with the desired shade, and eventually the picture becomes complete. A completed painting by numbers will help you learn to analyze the subject and observe how the whole composition comes out of the colored areas.

The art of spot grouping

The "paint by numbers" approach is often ridiculed as simplistic, uncreative and formal. But it is worth noting that the picture is created using many colored spots. They often seem meaningless apart from each other and don't look like anything "real", but together they form a group. The next step in developing as an artist is to learn to see such color spots in the picture on your own, without the help of a printed circuit. This will help you focus on how the finished object will look without looking at small areas and wondering what colors they should be painted.

Start with the darkest color and end with the lightest or vice versa, leaving all the segments that have a mixed color until the rest of the shades run out. This will help you learn a little about tone and halftone in painting.

The composition of the set for painting by numbers

Pictures for coloring can be found in almost any needlework store. The "Painting by Numbers" set will include a brush, small cans of paint in any desired number of colors, and a pattern printed on a canvas or cardboard base. You may think that there is not enough paint in it. But it should be enough to complete the picture.

Each set contains a specific type of paint, acrylics and oils are the most common, but there are options with watercolors and pencils. Still, the last option suits few, because painting by numbers is a great exercise in brush control. In this case, you know exactly where the paint should go, and you can fully concentrate on applying it.

Advantages of painting by numbers

Controlling the brush to accurately paint to the edge or to a specific point is an essential skill that every aspiring artist should develop. In sets, it is usually small so that you can draw the smallest shapes in the picture. Just follow the pattern and you will be amazed at what you can create. In the course of work, it may turn out that some figures have two numbers, and not just one. This indicates that two colors should be mixed together. The benefit is that you will learn how to divide the paint into equal portions to create the right color.

But don't dip the brush from one container of paint into another, as the colors will get dirty then. Mix a large amount on a non-porous surface, and then paint over the desired area. If you try to mix two colors in the picture itself, you may end up with too much paint coming out over the edges of the shape.

How to create a set for painting with numbers by yourself?

Wanting to save money or not finding a suitable version of the picture, many artists begin to think about how to make paintings by numbers with their own hands. This is not as difficult to do as it seems. Do-it-yourself painting by numbers from your own photos can be made using special services and programs. If you know how to use graphic editors, such as “Photoshop” or “Illustrator”, and you know what tracing is, you can sort the picture yourself into fragments with a certain color and number them manually, placing each color on a separate layer.

But this process is quite laborious and takes a lot of time. Therefore, for image processing and creating a picture by numbers with your own hands, it is easier to use ready-made programs. Paid versions are usually more convenient and contain more functions, for example, the selection of colors with indication of proportions for mixing. These programs include Coloring and Stoik Color by Number. Free services are usually only able to parse the image into areas, but they do not offer a selection of colors. These options include mozzz.art and PhotoPad Photo Editor.

Selection of art materials

But first you need to decide on the appropriate type of paint. Acrylic is preferred over oil as the paint dries quickly and washes off the brush with water, making it easier for a beginner to start with. But drawing in such a way that you can finish part of the image at a time will be problematic with it. Acrylic dries quickly on the palette, and you have to work very quickly.

Also, in the process, you will need to rinse the brushes many times, and paint consumption will increase. Therefore, when working with acrylic paint, it is more convenient to paint one color at a time, starting from the largest areas and ending with the smallest. Starting with the larger ones, you will practice more with the brush and paint. And by the time you get to the smallest spots, which are quite difficult to draw, you will already have gained the skill and the process will go easier. Working from top to bottom helps prevent inadvertent splashing of paint on areas intended for a different shade.

How to mix shades?

To create a painting by numbers with your own hands, you need to be able to mix the material in the right proportion to get the desired color. Paid programs usually indicate how much of which color to take in order to get the desired shade. But a lot depends on the paint manufacturer. Pigments may vary from company to company and produce different results. Therefore, before making a painting by numbers, it is advisable to experiment and try to mix the colors on the palette to compare with the image.

It is worth remembering that on the monitor all colors will look brighter and more intense than on a printout made by a photo printer. Therefore, you should not expect exactly the same juicy shades as on a computer screen. But the advantages of this method include the fact that you can print any image. For example, make a painting by numbers with the hands of lovers on Valentine's Day and give it to your soulmate, or turn a friend's photo into a work of art and give it to him for his birthday.

How to choose a brush?

We figured out the paints, but what about the main tool? It is advisable to choose a brush for a set thin for details and large for large areas. It is important that it matches the paint you have chosen for the project. You can get by with just one thin brush, but that can make painting large areas very tiring. And when using acrylic, it will lead to overspending of paint. Therefore, if you have a large brush, use it to paint a picture by numbers with your own hands.

How to stretch the canvas and assemble the stretcher?

After creating a scheme and selecting colors, a new problem arises - how to transfer the scheme to the material and make a picture out of it. To do this, the easiest way is to contact specialized companies that print on canvas in your city. Perhaps there will also be a service to stretch it on a stretcher. Otherwise, you will have to do it yourself. To do this, you need the subframe itself. It can be disassembled, then the parts should be connected before work.

A do-it-yourself stretcher for painting by numbers is sometimes made independently using wooden planks. To stretch the canvas on it, you will need a furniture stapler with brackets, a pencil, a spray gun to moisten the canvas and a hammer. First you need to put on the picture with the front side and smooth it with your hands. Then place a stretcher on top and mark the borders of the canvas with a pencil.

Do-it-yourself stretcher for painting by numbers: step by step instructions

After that, you can proceed to the stretch, in front of it the wrong side can be slightly moistened. The first bracket is attached to the center of one of the long sides. Then the canvas is stretched on the other side as tight as possible, but not so as to tear, and fastened in the same way on the other. Sometimes you may need a hammer to drive the staple deeper into the canvas. A stretched strip should appear in the center. Then the same is repeated with the remaining sides. Next, the brackets are placed on the sides of one of the sides, then the other, so that a uniform tension is obtained. At the same time, the corners are left free, not reaching them by about 5 cm, so that the canvas in them can be tucked in and carefully fixed.

After everything is ready, it should be moistened from the back so that after drying it straightens. If it was not possible to stretch the picture evenly the first time, you can moisten it again and, by removing some of the staples, correct the flaws. After that - start drawing your personal work of art. Now you know how to make DIY paint by numbers.

For several years I have been tracing in illustrator and placing numbers manually. It's a very laborious process, yes. And now the torment has come to an end

Finally, there was a Coloring program that makes decent schemes with numbers.
I stumbled upon it on this site. It turned out very funny. The person wrote that there is such a Coloring program, and I replied that it was all nonsense, but I went to look. It turned out - not nonsense, but a very thing. Furthermore! This program will give you the whole layout by color - the formulas of exactly your colors from the paints of Russian manufacturers. And the best part is that this program was created by our Russian guys! The entire interface is in Russian and there is also responsive support. I don’t understand programming and can’t estimate the amount of work, but the fact that there are actually thousands of color formulas in the program database that had to be selected manually, i.e. mix and calculate the exact color, is a huge job. I use imported paints, and I have my own formulas (I studied coloring step by step for more than a year and developed my own formulas, as well as sorted out manufacturers), so this is not relevant for me, but for beginners and amateurs it is an invaluable help .

To visually show what the result looks like - here are some screenshots with the same photo with which I tested all other programs:

On the first screen - you can see the settings. There are enough of them - the number of colors, the smoothness of the contours, more - less details, the presence - the absence of small details (whoever traced in the illustrator knows how these unnecessary small specks infuriate throughout the picture), yet - the scheme can be just black and white, or maybe be colored, i.e. with a translucent fill. On the second - the layout by color, on the third - the scheme itself. Scroll down and compare with other programs. In general, to describe it all for a long time, it is better to download and play around with the settings yourself. There are also other reviews of the program on the network, and a video review, so I will not paint everything in detail.

The Coloring Book program has a free demo version and there are promotions when you can buy it literally at a symbolic price. And now I went to the site to check if anything has changed, and there the price for the home version is 490 rubles. It also says on the site that if you don't like it, the money will be returned. Well, I did not check, because I liked it. The pro version is also heavily discounted. Sob sob. When I bought, I did not know about the shares. I'll write to the manufacturer. M. b. for my positive feedback, I am entitled to a discounted renewal or some other goodie

Yes, not everything is so rosy, of course, there are difficulties. I'll tell you about mine. It happens that I am ordered a painting based on a photo from my phone taken at night. The scheme will be terrible, the colors will be terrible! And no other program can pull it out! You can make a picture from such a photo only by hand drawing. The same thing - photos from classmates are shrunk 10 times and taken, you can’t understand how (((There’s not even the color of the eyes to make out, or even the eyes themselves.
If you are taking a portrait - ideally - contact a professional photographer. Yes, this is money, but you will spend money on printing on canvas, coloring will take a lot of time, as well as stretching and baguette. And if you do it yourself with this program, you also need to pay for it. If you order a portrait for me, then this is also not three kopecks. Believe me, portraits taken from professional or just good photos are strikingly different from portraits from a phone.
Secondly, if you own Photoshop, it is better to do pre-processing - improve colors, increase contrast, blur the background a little, focus on lips, eyebrows, pupils, etc. Then after running through the Coloring program, the result will be better. But that's for perfectionists like me.
Third - when the photo is being processed - an inscription appears - wait, it will take about one minute. So, it will really take about a minute, but on the minimum settings. And I always have the maximum. And processing may take more than an hour. At first I was nervous, forcibly quitting the program, thinking that everything was hanging. Then she disassembled. I just put it on processing and do household chores or something else on the computer. And in fact - no matter what monsters I drove into the program and what I didn’t demand from it - there was never a real freeze. You just need to be patient.

Well, below is the original old post with an overview of other programs:
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My mother-in-law loves painting by numbers. And one day I looked at her next masterpiece and thought - well, it's very simple! In Photoshop, break it down by color, highlight the contours, arrange the numbers, pick up the colors. I bought a canvas, paints and began to delve into.

Everything turned out to be far from simple)) But it is quite feasible.

At one of the stages of my creative search, I was flattered by the idea that there is such a program that will do everything for me. Well, it is, and there are even a lot of programs.

1. Stoik Color by Number

You can download and use for a month for free. Minus - you can only see how it is, but neither print nor save from free version will not work. It is quite possible to sculpt landscapes, but without small details. Only the number of colors is configurable, detailing is not. The portraits turn out to be scary. You can end up with contours with numbers with Russian ingenuity - zoom in as much as possible, take a screenshot of the areas and then glue them together in Photoshop.

Here are my screenshots (with my kids)

This is how the numbers look like

And this is how you can get the contours - take a screenshot large and glue

birdie

2. Chinese free with an inimitable name in Chinese. If anyone needs it, I'll post it on a file sharing site. There you can blur, adjust the sharpness, brightness, contrast, the degree of detail and the number of colors, change the size of the numbers, their color and the color of the contours. Cons - the Chinese interface, you will break your brain until you figure it out by typing. The program works only with small images up to 600*400 pixels. Maybe this is a feature of working in Russian Windows. Portraits are a little better than in Stoik Color by Number, but still it's atas.

So, if you have a lot of colors left, you can look for photos in approximately the same colors and play around.
Well, if you don’t play, but you want to make a portrait, then everything is a little more serious.

It is done like this. In the Illustrator program, you make a trace (transfer from raster to vector format) with a given number of colors and details. The main thing here is to strike a balance between the greed for beauty and the assessment of one's strengths and abilities.

I get it like this
Photo before

after

and these are contours without numbers

By the way, the Chinese do just that - they trace photographs. Only the numbers are placed not by themselves, but by specials. software, but I didn’t find them in the public domain, you can buy it, but with our money it’s about 9,000 rubles. If I were still sure that the program would work on our Windows, I would even buy it)

While the number was being made))
http://coloritbynumbers.com/
Great site for kids. You can download coloring by numbers for kids, you can print coloring pages with numbers or play online.

At the request of the workers, I share the Chinese miracle http://files.mail.ru/C6967E5D74CD4423AD5A95872F24A389
It didn't break my computer, kaspersky didn't mind. Well, only when trying to do something with photos larger than the named 600 * 400, either nothing happened, or the program hung and crashed. I am not responsible for your computer, if anything. By the way, another minus not mentioned above is gray wide stripes in the contours.

The program "Coloring" will create full-fledged coloring schemes (and paintings) by numbers from any of your photos and images. Just load the original picture into the program, create a coloring scheme, print it out, buy the necessary paints in the store - and go, for the brush!

If you wish, you can add the paints you have to the program, and "Coloring" itself will tell you which paints in what proportions you need to mix to get the right shades - for each of your coloring pages!

We really managed to create a unique program, which has no analogues in the world! :-) A couple of clicks - and you can create a painting by numbers from any favorite photo.

You can even set the level of complexity of the created picture - set three parameters (the number of details, the smoothness of details, the presence of small details) and you will get either a pretty and easy-to-draw picture, or a beautiful and detailed masterpiece, but difficult to draw. You choose!

A few words about the program, or why you should try "Coloring" right now:

The program will create for you full-fledged schemes of paintings by numbers from any image. You can draw a story from your favorite photo or a portrait as a gift to a loved one.
The program is made entirely in Russian.
You can adjust the level of complexity (and detail) of the painting you create.
"Coloring" will select the desired shades for the picture and indicate which of your colors to mix in what proportions to obtain this shade. Or just create a coloring for your colors, without mixing - as you wish!
The installation of the program is performed in one click - you just need to run the installer file.
Permanent technical support by phone (during business hours) and round-the-clock - by e-mail.
We periodically release program updates with improvements and improvements. At the same time, all programs on the computers of customers are updated automatically (with the Internet connected).

And yes, you can try the demo version of the program for free, but keep in mind that this is a demo version, that you cannot create a complete picture by numbers in it (but all the possibilities of the program will become clear). For those who doubt the quality of our program, you can return the money within 14 days after the purchase, without giving reasons (just write to us).

We really tried hard and, it seems, we managed to develop a really cool and unique program. I hope it brings you many positive emotions! Now you can draw what you really want!

Screenshots

With the help of "Coloring" you can create real full-fledged paintings by numbers from any photos or images! The program is presented in several versions, so its capabilities will satisfy both ordinary users who are “on you” with a computer, and paint-by-number producers who need powerful software to create professional sets (in fact, many manufacturers just use “Coloring” in production version).

So. In a few paragraphs I will tell you how you can quickly and easily create a full-fledged painting by numbers from any photo using Coloring Book, and then I will briefly describe the special features of the program provided in the versions for manufacturers.

Create a painting by numbers with Coloring Book

1. Load the original image or photo into the program. To do this, simply click on "Upload source image" in the upper left corner of the main program window and select the desired file on your computer.

This is what the main Coloring Pages window looks like after uploading the original photo

2. Specify the parameters for the future painting by numbers. The most important thing is the number of colors and the size of the picture in centimeters. Simple, isn't it? 🙂 Additional settings that can be left "as is", or can be set individually for each picture:

"Coloring" - a block of the most important settings for the future picture by numbers

The degree of detail of the future picture (we indicated the average settings so that the picture turned out to be simple and pretty). Detailing is adjusted by three sliders: "Number of details", "Smoothness of details" and "Presence of small details". Everything is also very simple here - the more left the sliders, the more realistic the picture is, but it is also more difficult to draw (a lot of details). The more right the sliders, the simpler the picture, with fewer details, is obtained. For each picture, you can select your own optimal parameters - so that the picture turns out beautiful, and it was not difficult to draw it!
A way to select colors for a future painting. Everything is also simple here - you need to choose how the colors will be selected for the picture by numbers:

1. Either "Easy Color Matching"- then the program will try to match the closest colors to the colors of the original image, and you yourself will have to look for similar paints in the store or mix from others.

2. Either "For colors"- this is a very convenient option with the selection of colors for real paints from real manufacturers! You need to tell the program which manufacturers to choose colors for. You can choose acrylic and / or gouache from one or all manufacturers available in the program at once: Nevskaya Palitra, Olki, Tair. To put it simply - when this setting is enabled, you will not have to bother with either the selection of colors or their mixing - the program itself will write which specific colors of which manufacturers to buy. By the way, all these paints are available in almost any stationery / hobby store.

3. And the third option - "For paints with the selection of mixing proportions". Similar to the previous "for colors" with the difference that the program will be able to match the colors more closely to the original image, but you will have to suffer with blending in proportions. Of course, “Coloring” will indicate which paints should be mixed in what proportions, but we must remember that this is only a software calculation of the “base”, but in reality you always have to add paints “by eye” to obtain accurate shades.

By the way, you can use not only those paints that are included in the program by default (Nevskaya Palitra, Olki, Tahir), but also add your own! This can be very convenient - for example, if there are "remnants" from past paintings and they need to be put somewhere. We add them all to “our palette” in “Coloring” and create pictures just for them! Voila!

3. If necessary, specify additional settings. If you press the "Important settings" button, a window will appear in front of you with many additional, not very important, settings. For example, you can choose the brightness for the contours and designations of the picture by numbers, the brightness of the colors that will fill the contours (or not fill them at all), you can set the way colors are indicated in the contour scheme of the picture (for example, only numbers, or only letters, and other options) and various other not very important parameters.

4. Create a painting by numbers. It would be more accurate to call this item “create a layout”, but oh well. We press the "Create" button, wait a few seconds and admire the layout of the future picture that appears on the right side of the program window. To put it simply - this is how what you end up drawing will look like! Like? Alright, let's move on to step 5. Save…” (see below). I do not like? There is a way out - we change the main settings for creating a picture (see above - the number of colors / size / detail) and recreate the picture with different settings until we get a result that pleases our soul. And to point 5:

5. Save the created painting by numbers - what will you get? Ta-daaam! The most intriguing moment: the layout of the painting by numbers has already been created, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the main window, select an empty folder to save, wait a few seconds and, hooray! not on the table)

a. The contour scheme of the painting by numbers- it's the most important! What is there to explain? If you are familiar with painting by numbers, then you understand that because of this scheme with contours and symbols, all the fuss ... several times so that your eyes do not get tired of looking for them. If the contours are small, the program will try to enter symbols into them so that they do not “run over” the contour and there is no hodgepodge. In a word - beauty! 🙂

Paint by numbers - the contour diagram itself with symbols

You need this file to purchase ready-made paints or mix them yourself, depending on the selected color matching method when creating a painting by numbers. Accordingly, the Color Map file will look different for each selection method. In the example - the type of file for the case when there is a selection just with an indication of the mixing proportions. The entire set of initial paints is indicated (with the names by which they can be bought in the store) and all proportions to obtain the desired shades. This is not the easiest option, but the result is the most beautiful 🙂

in. View of your future painting. In fact, this is not a very useful file for work (except sometimes to peep into it for convenience when drawing), but it warms the soul when you look and understand what a cool thing I will do soon 🙂

View of the future picture!

What else can you do in Coloring?

I briefly described the most basic steps for creating a paint by numbers. But the possibilities of the program are much wider, I will give those that immediately climb into my head:

1. On the second tab of the program - "Editing a picture", - you can fully manually finish the picture created by the program on the machine. You can draw details, change and delete them, add, replace and remove the colors of the picture. A very useful tab in case you want to bring something into the picture that is not in the original image. But this tab is available only in the "Commercial" version of the program.

2. Before loading the original image into the program, you can use the built-in functionality for pre-processing the original photo: you can crop it as needed, adjust the brightness and contrast, convert it to sepia or black and white. Here specifically, adjusting the brightness and contrast helps to improve the result. So I advise you to take advantage of this opportunity.

Where to print? Where to buy paints?

You can print the resulting picture by numbers in any photo workshop (where ordinary photographs used to be printed), a printing house, and even on a home printer with printing on thick paper. The main thing is that printing should be done on a dense material (canvas, cardboard, whatman paper - you can also buy it in places of printing) and the material itself allows you to print on it with high quality. However, this is usually not difficult.

As for the paints - I mentioned above, but I repeat - if you create a picture to match the colors of the manufacturers included in the program, then these paints can be purchased at almost any hobby or stationery store. They are very common.

Additional features of "Coloring" for producers of paintings by numbers

"Coloring" is used not only by ordinary people to create stories from their own photographs, but also by many enterprises. HobbyLine has separate offers for them, here are some of them:

The ability to integrate your extended unlimited palette of colors to create scenes from your own colors.
The ability to connect the "No change" mode - when "Coloring" does not change the layouts loaded into it in any way, but only draws outlines and puts symbols in them.
The ability to connect saving in vector format - to increase the clarity of printing.