1. Prepare the reference
Choose a JPEG, PNG or WebP image. Pacyra decodes it in browser memory, corrects orientation, applies your crop and image adjustments, then creates a safe working copy for analysis.
The original file, filename and pixels are not sent to Pacyra, Supabase, Stripe, Cloudflare, Resend, analytics or an advertising provider.
2. Choose the kind of structure
There are two. Contour Painting traces the shapes that are actually in the photograph, following its edges, so the lines you draw and the areas you fill are the same thing. Colour by Number lays a repeating tiling over the picture instead, which is steadier to work from and reads as a worksheet.
Both produce closed shapes, a number in every one of them and a legend that matches. The detail control decides how much is on the page, and whatever it returns is paintable at the size you chose, because a shape with no room for its number is no use to anybody.
- Contour Painting follows the subject, from large masses down to accents.
- Squares sample and fill the complete cell.
- Hexagons tile edge to edge and combine cleanly with squares and triangles.
- Triangles form a genuine edge-sharing tiling.
3. Simplify colour and value
Every shape with the same final colour receives the same number, and the same photograph at the same settings always gives the same palette. The number of colours is a ceiling rather than a quota, so asking for more never leaves you mixing two you could not tell apart. Value studies run from a two tone notan up to forty five bands, with the legend tied to the same guide throughout.
4. Refine without losing the plan
Place a focus area, merge or refine regions, adjust edges and change palette assignments. Undo and redo record compact geometry edits rather than duplicating the source image.
5. Check, export or project
Pacyra estimates whether lines, labels and regions will remain practical at the selected physical size. The preview, projector and exports all render the same normalised geometry.
Projector view is a tracing aid. Check every corner and the scale bar on the real canvas before tracing.