Stitchboard Admin message #2
Re: Newbie needs help
February 5, 2016 at 5:02:54 AM  (in response to elizabethmcneil message #1)
 
Elizabeth,

Welcome! 

I'm so sorry to hear your dad suffers from dementia...my mother has also been diagnosed with it. 

As for the signature, I have to suggest that if it's copyrighted, please check on the legalities of using the image you have.  Although copyrighted images are generally safe to use for non-commercial use, I've recently been reading on the subject and sometimes copyright holders still insist upon someone getting permission for use of the copyrighted materials.  I'm not an expert on this, nor am I an attorney, but I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for inadvertently infringing on a copyright.  And if there is such a stipulation that you must get permission, I would have to think those involved would be kind, given your dad's diagnosis and the fact that you're using it for a very non-commercial use.

As for legibility of a signature, my advice is this: when making a pattern out of such an image, the best thing to do would be to make a pattern that is the exact width of the signature file.  So if it's 150 pixels in width, make the pattern 150 pixels wide.

If the original image is extremely wide, well over the size of project you'd like to do (or the limits of the freePatternWizard), my suggestion is to first try reducing it in a graphics program - the freePatternWizard wouldn't be suitable for reducing the image, as it isn't a graphics program.  Depending on the image itself, it may or may not be legible when reduced, but if that's the only choice, it would be worth a try. 

Hope that helps!

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