GIMP software 1

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is an image retouching and editing program released as free and open-source software. There now is a Mac OS Mountain Lion compatible version. The downloads may be found here, and more links for features, supported file formats, help tutorials. One limitation is that for “color separations” to work by inverting colors one needs to reduce images to 1 bit B/W images, a definite advantage is the speed relative to working in spreadsheet programs. Another drawback is that one is using single-pixel designing, so adding numbers for rows and stitches in a particular format is not possible. My June 10th post on illusion knits illustrated an example in creating repeats for them, here are sample results/charts

quilting double bed (for more on the topic see May 30th post)

MOSAIC PATTERNS

the accompanying swatch, which shows the difference in width resulting from using tuck setting <—> (top) and  slip <—> setting (bottom)
double jacquard

images of working settings and gimp windows for my separations