DIY Photo Eye Chart Art with Tutorial

Last year when I was researching things for my gallery wall, I stumbled upon this great tool for making your own Eye Chart Art. I thought it was so cool, and started experimenting with different combinations.  I loved how my son's name looked, with his birthday, and it fit perfectly.  I made one, printed it, and hung it up near his room. Everyone always compliments it, and I tell everyone how easy and super cheap (just the cost of a photo print!) it is.  There are a few tips and tricks though, so I decided to share a tutorial on how to make your own!

This is the final Photo Eye Chart Art that I made for my son's room

Now onto making your own!  You need to go to this website: Custom Eye Chart Maker

This is what you will see

In the text box, you want to type in whatever you want your chart to display. You can experiment with different words and phrases and see what works and fits. It doesn't accept spaces, but you can put in symbols and dashes etc.  If you have extra room at the end (aka your phrase isn't long enough), it will add random letters, and that doesn't look great, so try to find something that fits well.

Click make chart!

Nest you are going to see your chart, and then right click and select save. Save it somewhere on your computer where you know how to find it, like in 'My Pictures'.

Okay, now you are going to go to a photo editing website called PicMonkey.

Once there, you will click edit a photo at the top, and then open your picture.

Once your photo is opened, look on the left side bar and select 'Crop'

Next, select 8x10 in the drop down menu. You will need to expand this but dragging the little circles at the corners outward.  You want to cut out the grey border, so that is not in the crop rectangle (should be outside white space).  This should keep your 8x10 shape.

Now you should have your eye chart with just plain white surrounding it. Click Apply (green button under crop)

Next you will click on the lipstick picture on the left sidebar.

Then you will scroll all the way down that list until you see 'Clone'.  Click on that.  

Now, this part might seem tricky, but it's not.  First, set the brush hardness to 100% by dragging the circle from 0, all the way right (100%).  Next, click on 'Source' so that the source button is blue (as seen).  Now, you will see a circle as your mouse pointer.  Take that circle and click next to where you see 'www', and click directly to the left of the first 'w' so that the circle is in a completely white space.  After you click, a plain circle will pop up.  Take that circle and put it right over the first w, and start clicking (see picture below). You will see the black starting to white out. Just continue clicking all the way over to the end until it is all whited out. 

Once the text is all gone hit apply (under clone) and we are ready for the next step.

On the left sidebar again, click the black box for framing.  I use the 2nd frame from the top, Simple Edge.  I leave the settings alone because I just like the black frame, but you can do whatever you want with that by playing around with the settings.  

After you have your desired frame, click apply (green button under frame).

This is how it should look

Now we are going to save the photo. Click save at the top center of the screen.

After you click save, this box will pop up on the left side.  Type in whatever you want for your file name, select 'Sean' for the highest print quality photo, and then click save photo at the bottom.  A box will pop up, and then you select the folder on your computer where you want to save it (my pictures is usually easy to navigate back to).

Now that your Eye Chart is saved, all you have to do is print it!  You can print it at home, or load it to any photo printing website to have it printed.  I used Snapfish because they were offering a free 8x10 print.  You can print it in whatever size you want, but I found 8x10 was the best choice.

What cute phrases have you come up with?  Submit your DIY Eye Chart Art over at Domestic Superhero on Facebook! I would love to see what you come up with!