Pixelbead

Planning a fuse bead design by hand means squinting at a picture and guessing which of a brand's colors comes closest. Pixelbead does that part for you. You upload a photo or illustration, and it builds a grid, matches each cell to a real bead color and counts how many beads of each color the pattern needs.

The matching is brand-aware. You pick the palette you actually own or plan to buy, from Perler, Hama, Artkal or MARD, and the tool keeps to that brand's colors. Grid controls let you set the size before you export, and there's a board size guide to help you choose it.

When the pattern looks right you export a PNG preview, a printable PDF and a materials list.

If you'd like something to start with, the site has free patterns of its own, and they show how much sizes vary. An easy sitting orange cat is 24 by 24 cells in 8 colors and takes 576 beads. A smiling sunflower is 40 by 40 in 9 colors, at 996 beads. At the other end, a 120 by 120 anime portrait in the MARD palette uses 30 colors and 14,400 beads, which is a serious project.

The collections lean seasonal and practical. You'll find flowers, cats, small patterns and Christmas designs, along with food, keychains, coasters and the alphabet.

According to the FAQ, Pixelbead is free and doesn't require sign-up. Uploaded photos aren't saved, because image processing runs locally in the browser and the photos don't leave your device. The privacy policy repeats that, and adds that the site may use analytics and Google AdSense to display ads, and that those services don't receive the images you process.

That policy is brief and carries no date, and no person or company is named as the operator. If you've got a photo you'd love to see in beads, upload it and see what the grid looks like before you buy a single bag.