You’ve probably often heard people say that the size of a Diamond Painting matters for how the result will be. That’s true and you should really think about the size when ordering a Diamond Painting. However, you also need to think about the number of colors that the painting have. The number of colors also has significance for the end result. If you like to read my post about size you can find it here: size matters for Diamond Painting.
No shading or color change
For example, if you have too few colors, you will not get shading or color changes. So if you have ordered a large painting with a motif that have a lot of shadows and color changes, it will not look good with few colors. This is because each shift has a color, and if there are few colors to use it will use the closest one. Which can mean that if you have a picture with gray shadows then they might all turn black instead. As you understand, the picture will not be the same with a black cluster of drills instead of the different shades of gray.
Count by yourself
If you are not sure how many colors should be on the painting, you can count for yourself how many different colors you see in the picture of the Diamond Painting. Then you can see if the number of colors seems to match the description. This allows you to get an estimate of how many colors are needed. If you look at a painting and you find 45 different colors, but it says it has 25 different colors then I would skip it or find one that has more colors.
The Diamond Painting for the below image has between 30-45 different colors depending on size. I think the number of colors sounds perfectly reasonable. If I count myself then I would say that the background has two different colors, Eeyore has about 12 different, Winnie the Pooh has 5 different, Tigger has around 5 different and Piglet also has around 5 different. If you put these together, you will land at 29. Which I would set as a lowest number since there are shades that I probably do not see.
An example
I have a program for creating my own cross stitch patterns, and in that you get to choose the number of colors when you import an image. If I import the image of Winnie the Pooh and his friends and choose that it has 45 different colors, the result will be according to the left image. It looks really good in my opinion, you can clearly see what it is. In the right image I have set the number of colors to 15, and you can immediately see that a lot of details disappeared.
Although you can still see what it is, it looks a bit odd. Piglet looks really weird, and there is black colors on Eeyore that should not be there. The reason? There is no color that is better suited and then the program takes what is closest, which in this case was black. This is exactly what happens to a Diamond Painting that does not have enough colors.
So when ordering a painting look not only at how big it is but also at the number of colors that it says it should have. That way you get the best results.
