Kilgore,

Welcome!

The 5M limit is current; the images you send through the freePatternWizard are best off sent as pixel=bead. The program itself isn't really a graphics program, so when you send it an extremely large image made up of thousands of pixels, it has to reduce that image down to a very, very small size to work it out to the number of beads across. This can mess up the colors, as well. Since it's not a graphics program, it doesn't really know what's important to the image, so it's best off to send an image that's already adjusted to that pixel=bead size, and those images shouldn't be extremely large.

If you don't have a graphics program to do the reductions of images yourself, if you have a PC, I can recommend two free, very old and powerful graphics programs that you can use to reduce your images so they'll be optimized for the freePatternWizard, where you can ensure the best possible results.

Kilgore,

So glad you're here!

Yes, you're absolutely correct! Beads are not perfectly square, and that's technically why we originally chose not to allow the vertical axis to be defined as a number of stitches, so patterns wouldn't be skewed. The software works it out, and though it's not absolutely perfect, it's more precise than it would be if one were to simply look and try to figure it out. Unfortunately, that's a limitation that will always exist...unless one chooses square beads. (My ADHD brain has been sorely tempted. "Square beads? They'd be...perfect!" )