BeadCreator Bead Design Software Tour
Our bead pattern design software, BeadCreator, was released as free beading inventory software back in early 2000, when such notable companies as Beadscape and BeadPlan ceased development. We looked at those beading programs, saw serious flaws in their design, and set out to build a better program. Today, 20 years later, we continue to build upon the foundation of our software with notable improvements.
We have fine tuned our beading software to be as easy to use, yet have all the tools needs to unleash your creativity for bead pattern design and development. Take a few minutes to watch our short video below to see how easy it is to create a pattern right out of the box.
Using BeadCreator, From Start to Finish, One Pattern
As you can see, creating a beading pattern is an exercise in simplicity. From the size of the beads to the number of bead colors used, you have complete control. Now, your skill level may be more advanced, and the Bead Faerie method will work to get your design into the program, but the real jewels of our software are found inside the program, after you've created your base design pattern.
First, if you're the type of designer that has hundreds of tubes of beads, and constantly buying more for patterns, you'll love our Bead Inventory System. You input your inventory into BeadCreator, and then when you design a pattern, you can ask BeadCreator to ONLY use the beads you have in stock. This helps to minimize your outlay of cash for additional beads. Or, you can ask BeadCreator to use inventory first before it uses new beads. When you output your pattern, we provide for you a stocking list of whats in inventory and what you'll need to order. When you've committed the beads to the project, they are subtracted from your inventory.
Second, we provide extensive color editing tools to help you with your design. Hue, saturation and lightness are just the tip of the iceberg to what you can do. The secret sauce to our software is the use of the Dewey Delica system, developed in conjunction with long time beader Susie Hughes. When you use the Dewey Delica system, you'll find that your finished patterns use the correct type of beads and finishes, providing a uniform look to your work. We detail this in a book written on BeadCreator, available separately for purchase or for free via digital download. This is an extensive detailing of everything BeadCreator can do, written by a beader for beaders. It's not a detrimental fact, despite what our competitors might claim; it just means that a single page manual is for a program with limited capabilities.
There are dozens and dozens of bullet points to what our software will do. It does loom, brick, peyote (to 9 drop), RAW, fringe, sacred gourd and herringbone. It outputs to native PDF format, meaning that you don't need to install a third-party program to get an Acrobat PDF file. We also output to Word, Doc, Excel, RTF and text files; JPG, PNG, BMP image formats; to HTML; and most importantly, to XML. Why is XML important? It's because it's an Open Source format, enabling you to import our files in to any other beading program (assuming anyone else writes the spec for it.) We did this because of Beadscape and BeadPlan (and more recently BeadCellar) - are programs that are no longer in development today, but left plenty of people locked in to their program format.
We provide two levels for our software: BeadCreator Professional, and Professional Plus. A side note to this: Historically, we sell more Professional versions than any other version, even if the user is at an entry level. And of those that purchase the Entry level version, 86 percent of them upgrade to Pro or Pro Plus within 90 days of purchasing the Entry Level version. Why am I telling you this? Because if you choose to purchase our software and upgrading, over the course of the upgrades, you'll spend incrementally more than if you just purchase the Professional version to begin with.
The Professional Version is a very full featured version. It has everything you expect, and more. Included with the Pro Edition is file protection, enabling you to prevent the printing of your patterns when selling them; assembling previously created patterns in BeadCreator to create pattern books of 10 or more patterns; advanced color editing functions; etc. - Loom, Brick, 1-9 Drop Peyote, Sacred Gourd, Herringbone, RAW stitches - Mix and match stitches to create fringe - New masks and color shapes combine with all pattern formats - New color editing features using the right pane - Expanded color correction - Intelligent Color Reduction - Delete individual beads by color - Show color variants as options - Password file protection - Expanded Dewey Decimal specifications - Support for third-party plug-ins - Export pattern data to XML, an open-source format - Import JPG, TIF, GIF and PNG formats - Online video training included Standard features include: - Convert image to a pattern - Create designs from scratch - Full suite of design editing tools design - Choose from multiple bead sizes - Create custom color palettes, fully accessible - Full bead inventory management - Copy protect your patterns, limit print ability - Preview original and pattern simultaneously - Desktop publishing tools included - Create single pattern books for resale - Choose from custom cover designs for pattern books - Shopping cart links built in to books for extra sales - Customize fonts, sizes, columns - Creates custom pattern websites - Watermark images, protect your hard work - Upgradable to 20,000 image artwork database included - Export to native PDF - No third-party app needed. It sells for $149.95
The Professional Plus version includes everything above PLUS the growing stock image library of paintings from the Old Masters. At full build out, our library will include 20,000 images from over 1,000 artists, including Cezanne, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh and many, many others. These images are all copyright free, and you can use all or part of them, pulling in elements to use in your own designs. One of our customers created a tapestry of Van Gogh's Irises, and she says it looks holographic. This stock image library is nearly 10 gigabytes and growing, a real resource for artists wanting to add something unique to their portfolio of designs. It retails for $249.95
The most compelling offer with our software is our technical support. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, weekends and holidays included. When you read our reviews, you'll see many users that have been with us for as long as we have been producing software. They would not be with us if our software sucked or tech support was terrible. They are worth reading if you want to gain some insight into our software or our philosophy.
Last, you may have noticed that this was written as though we were discussing the software with you. That's because we don't do corporate speak well. We are passionate about our work, and it spills out in to our conversations. And this is what two people would be doing: discussing, not listing bullet points or competition bashing. It's not our style - we just want to code the best software for the best friends we have - you and the other 40,000 users worldwide who depend on our software in their own projects.
Thank you for the opportunity to share with you our thoughts on BeadCreator.