Playing with Beadographer

In my previous post, I mentioned that I am unable to get EasyBeadPatterns to run on my new Windows 10 computer. I also mentioned that I found an online bead pattern making tool called Beadographer HERE. They also have a lot of video tutorials HERE on their YouTube channel.

Yesterday I spent some time trying it out by copying one of my existing "Russian Leaf Earrings" designs. Beadographer is very nice to use and the patterns come out about the same size as I had been making my color charts. I also like that I can create custom colors as well as choose from a list of Delica bead colors. They even seem to have the latest Delica colors. EasyBeadPatterns is limited to an outdated set of Delica colors. 

One thing that I do miss about Beadographer is the black outline around each bead which makes the individual beads stand out nicely. Beadographer does offer a choice of three background colors and below you can see how the same color chart looks on each of them. 

For comparison, here is the original earring chart that I made with EasyBeadPatterns:

The chart below has the "Auto" background which is a medium gray with a darker gray outline:

The chart below has the "Light" background which is a light gray with white outlines. This is the one that I will use because it is the easiest to remove the background from in Paint Shop Pro using the Color Replacer tool. (see my update at the bottom of this post)

Below you can see the same sample after I've removed the background in Paint Shop Pro:

Lastly, below is the "Dark" background. I like the contrast of it but it would use a horrible amount of ink to print out a chart like that. It would be great if you view your color charts on a tablet or phone but I prefer to print mine out so that I can use a magnetic guide to keep track of which row I am on. It is a thin metal board with two movable magnetic strips that hold the paper pattern in place on the board.

The examples above all used the Brick setting in Beadographer. Below is an example using the Loom setting to create fringe next to my original fringe earring chart that I made with EasyBeadPatterns. 

I wasn't crazy about the lack of contrast with the Light background so I tried the dark background setting. For fringe designs, I like the dark background much better.

While I'm still very sad that I won't be able to use EasyBeadPatterns anymore, I'm happy to have found Beadographer because I can still make color charts for my earring designs.

UPDATE: After typing this post, I watched quite a few of the video tutorials. I learned that you can turn off the excess canvas before taking a screenshot of your color chart by pressing the "U" key on your keyboard.