Choose a photo with one clear subject
A face, a pet or a landmark against a simple background converts best. Busy scenes with many small people turn into noise at drill size. Crop tightly so the drills go where the interest is.
Size it from the canvas
Most diamond painting drills are 2.5 mm, so every 10 cm of canvas holds about 40 drills. Decide the canvas size first, then set the chart width to match. The table below gives drill counts for common canvas sizes.
How many colours?
Kits typically use 20 to 50 colours. More colours give smoother skin and skies; fewer are cheaper and easier to sort. Start around 25 and merge any two shades you can't tell apart on screen.
Ordering drills
Drills are sold by DMC number, which is why the PDF legend uses DMC codes. Order 10 to 20% extra of each colour: drills go missing, and a few always come out chipped.
| Canvas | Drills wide | Drills high |
|---|---|---|
| 30 ร 40 cm (12 ร 16 in) | 120 | 160 |
| 40 ร 50 cm (16 ร 20 in) | 160 | 200 |
| 50 ร 70 cm (20 ร 28 in) | 200 | 280 |
Diamond painting









