Black and white (and shades of grey)

[Asinine]

So I've got a few projects sitting on my desk, and they depend heavily (if not entirely) on black and white photos. Unfortunately, KG Chart doesn't seem to have a "stick to these colors" option, and for whatever reason, PC Stitch has been lagging so badly it's not even worth bothering with. (I think it may be due to Apple products now infesting my PC. But that's just a theory.)

Does anyone know of a way to either limit the colors to specific options in either program, or something of that sort? I've gone through my thread and decided on a good grey scale, or is there some method you use for these types of situations?

These are what I'm going for:

Spoiler

1.jpg (190.99 KiB) Viewed 2798 times

My biggest problem is that the ground and my sister's legs are strange colors, and the bro-in-law's legs blend in way too well with the background.

Spoiler

2.jpg (154.68 KiB) Viewed 2797 times

And with this one... why are there blues/purpley hues, and my sister's back looks just outright strange.

(Different sisters, btw. )


TIA!

[Asinine]

Okay, no takers haha. I'm patient, but I've also decided that maybe sharing my grey scale might be helpful to others.

So, from dark to light (all in DMC):

310
3799
413
844
535
317
645
646
414
647
318
(169)
645
415
(168)
762
3024
3072
blanc

I don't have 168 or 169 to compare by eye, and I'm waiting on a new color chart (mom-in-law threw my old one away ) to affirm their placement. It's interesting how different these colors look in KG Chart (and how it says some are darker than others when they're obviously not)!

One note: I think it's from about 318 and lighter that the colors are very similar (and very light). I'm hoping to find more in the darker range when I get the chart. But heck, I think a solid 17 colors isn't too shabby. Now if I could only get KGC or PC Stitch to agree...

[Ellentje]

Well I don't think it's possible to limit the program to pick from certain colors, but if it's just a some strange colors in an otherwise okay pattern you could always change them manually? Since you already know the colors you want to use. That's what I do if I don't like the pattern I get.

[Asinine]

Thanks for the reply! I actually was just coming back to give an update.

Yeah, I'm thinking you can't set the specific palette, but you can limit the colors and then do it manually. I'm currently in the process of importing the pictures in PC Stitch, changing it to the scale I want, and then copying them manually to KG Chart (since I don't own PC Stitch and honestly, the program confuses me).

I've actually found that I like a sepia scale better; less color variants and it has a possibility of having over 24 colors, of which I have 16.

Spoiler

kristi&joey-handmade.jpg (52.9 KiB) Viewed 2682 times

Do note, the colors blend a lot better than it looks like in the picture.

For this, I'm using (in this order):
White, Ecru, 543, 842, 613, 3032, 612, 611, 610, 3781, 3031, 838, 938, and 3371