Choose high contrast
Images with distinct light and dark areas create clearer, easier-to-paint boundaries.
Free · Private · No signup
Paint by Numbers Generator
Turn any photo into a printable paint by numbers template in seconds. Upload an image and instantly get a numbered outline, a matching colour palette chart and a finished painting preview — as vector SVG or a print-ready PDF. Everything runs inside your browser, so your photos never leave your device.
- 100% free, unlimited exports, no watermark
- Automatic face & portrait detail enhancement
- Vector output that scales to any canvas size
Create Your Paint by Numbers Template
Click to select or drag & drop an image
You can also paste from clipboard (Ctrl+V) · JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP
🔒 Processed on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
Your colour palette
Recent images
How It Works
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1
Upload image
Pick any photo with clear colours and contrast. Drag it in, browse your device, or paste straight from the clipboard.
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2
Auto-process
Our algorithm clusters colours in perceptual Lab space, removes noise, merges unpaintable slivers, then traces smooth vector borders.
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3
Download & paint
Grab the complete PDF guide or individual SVG files for the painting, outline and palette, then start your project.
What You Get
- Vector template — crisp SVG and PDF files optimised for high-quality printing at any size.
- Colour guide — a matching palette chart detailing every colour, with HEX and RGB values.
- Instant preview — see your finished masterpiece immediately in the browser.
Why Use This Tool
- 100% free & private — everything runs locally in your browser. No server uploads.
- Blazing fast — powered by an optimised k-means and vectorisation engine.
- High quality — smooth, simplified borders that are actually fun to paint.
Made For
- Gifts & keepsakes — pet portraits, weddings, family photos and travel memories.
- Classrooms & therapy — calming, structured art activities for any age.
- Artists & makers — colour-blocking studies and murals scaled from vector files.
Full-Image & Intelligent Face Processing
Our paint-by-number generator features automated image analysis. On upload, the system processes your entire image, identifying faces and group portraits while maintaining high-detail rendering for the full scene.
What happens when you upload
- Complete image analysis: the full scene is rendered in a high-quality paint-by-number format, so backgrounds stay as detailed as the subjects.
- Intelligent face recognition: every face — solo portrait or a large group — is detected automatically, with a skin-tone fallback on browsers without a native detector.
- Optimised detail for all: extra precision and colour depth are allocated to facial features so eyes, expressions and skin tones stay clearly defined.
Everything is processed the moment you upload — no manual settings required.
Tips for Great Paintings
Simplify your scene
Photos with fewer, larger subjects create a more enjoyable painting than busy compositions.
Optimise lighting
Well-lit photos are preferred; heavy shadows generate tiny, difficult-to-paint facets.
Check resolution
A clean, sharp source image of 1000px or more on the long edge ensures the best vector conversion.
Paint Suggestions
Use the palette guide
Download the palette chart as a reference for every colour in your design, ordered light to dark.
Check RGB values
The exported sheet lists exact HEX and RGB values under each swatch to help you mix precisely.
Prepare proper supplies
Have a quality canvas, acrylics and several brush sizes ready before transferring your layout.
Work light to dark
Paint the largest, lightest areas first and let each colour dry so neighbouring numbers stay crisp.
How to Print and Prepare Your Canvas
Now that you have your files, follow these steps to prepare your project:
Step 1 — Scaling your design
Open your SVG or PDF in any design software and scale it to your canvas size without losing quality.
Step 2 — Printing options
For large formats, print at a local shop on engineering paper. Or print at home across multiple pages and tape them together.
Step 3 — Transferring to canvas
Place graphite transfer paper between the printout and a blank canvas, then trace the lines with a ballpoint pen.
Step 4 — Painting
Start with the largest areas, work light to dark, and rinse brushes between numbers to keep colours true.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this paint by numbers generator free?
Yes. paintbynumbers.vip is completely free with no account, no watermark and no export limits. Generate and download as many templates as you like.
Are my photos uploaded to a server?
No. Colour clustering, region tracing, numbering and file export all run locally in your browser using JavaScript and HTML5 Canvas. Your image never leaves your device, which makes the tool safe for family photos and private portraits.
How many colours should I use?
Between 12 and 20 colours suits most photos. Use 8–12 for a bold poster look or for beginners and children, and 24–36 for portraits and detailed landscapes where you want smooth skin tones and gradients.
What file formats can I download?
The painting preview, numbered outline and colour palette export as vector SVG files, plus a three-page print-ready PDF containing all three. Vector files scale to any canvas size without pixelation. A PNG export is also available.
Does it work well for portraits and faces?
Yes. The generator detects faces and skin tones automatically and allocates extra colour precision there, so eyes, expressions and skin gradients stay well defined while the background stays balanced.
How do I transfer the template onto a real canvas?
Print the outline page at 100% scale, place graphite transfer paper between the printout and your blank canvas, then trace over the lines with a ballpoint pen. For large canvases, print the SVG at a copy shop or tile it across several sheets.
What image size and format work best?
JPG, PNG, WebP and images exported from HEIC all work. A sharp source of at least 1000 pixels on the long edge, with good lighting and clear subject separation, gives the cleanest regions.
About the Paint by Numbers Generator
A Paint by Numbers template breaks a photograph into flat regions of colour, each marked with a number that maps to a paint swatch. paintbynumbers.vip automates that process: it reduces your photo to a limited palette, cleans up the noise that would otherwise create unpaintable slivers, traces every region as a smooth vector outline, and places a number in the widest part of each shape so it stays readable when printed.
Built for real painting, not just a screenshot
Colour clustering happens in perceptual CIE Lab space rather than raw RGB, so the palette matches how the eye actually groups tones. Regions below a minimum paintable area are merged into their strongest neighbour, contours are simplified with the Douglas–Peucker algorithm, and edges are optionally smoothed — producing borders that a brush can realistically follow.
Vector exports that scale to any canvas
Because the output is true vector geometry, an SVG generated from a phone photo can be printed at 30 × 40 cm or blown up to a wall mural with identical line quality. The PDF export bundles a colour preview, the numbered outline and a palette chart with HEX and RGB values on separate pages, ready to hand to a print shop.
Private by design
No image is ever transmitted. There is no upload endpoint, no account system and no analytics on your picture data — the entire pipeline executes in your browser tab and the result disappears when you close it, apart from the small thumbnails you choose to keep in your recent list, which are stored only on your own device.