Image editing
Pumpkin Stencil Maker
Make a jack-o’-lantern stencil from any photo or word, preview it on a lit pumpkin, and print it at the exact size of your pumpkin.
Processed on your device — nothing is sent anywhere.
Works in your browser. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
What do the black, gray and white areas mean?
Black means cut all the way through the wall of the pumpkin. Gray means shave: scrape off only the orange skin and a thin layer of flesh, without going through, so light glows softly through the thinner wall. White means leave the skin untouched; it stays dark when the candle is lit. With 2 tones there is no gray, only cut and leave — the easier choice for a first carving or for children.
Why are the bright parts of my photo cut out instead of the dark parts?
Because cut areas are the ones that glow. Cutting the highlights and leaving the shadows makes the lit pumpkin look like your photo rather than its negative. The printed stencil therefore looks inverted. If you prefer the opposite — for silhouettes, or when the pumpkin will be seen in daylight — tick Invert, and use Lit pumpkin preview to compare.
What is a floating piece and what is a bridge?
A floating piece is an area of skin completely surrounded by cut-out areas, such as the center of the letter O or the pupil of an eye. Once you cut around it, nothing holds it and it falls out. The tool finds these and marks them in red. A bridge is a strip of uncut skin, about ¼ inch (6 mm) wide or more, that you leave to link the piece to the rest. Draw one on the printout before carving, or change the thresholds, speck cleanup or font until the warning clears.
How do I transfer the stencil to the pumpkin?
Print the PDF at Actual size (100%) and check that the 1-inch bar measures 1 inch. Trim the paper, tape it flat to the pumpkin with small cuts around the edge so it follows the curve, then trace every line with a pin or poke tool, pressing dots about ⅛ inch apart. Remove the paper and carve along the dots. Carve the small details and the gray areas first, and the large cut-outs last, while the pumpkin wall is still strong.
What size should I print, and which photos work best?
Measure the flattest side of the pumpkin and choose a size about an inch smaller: 6–7 inches suits a medium pumpkin, 8–10 inches a large one. The PDF is laid out portrait or landscape to match the design and shrinks it if it would not fit inside the page margins. Close-up faces with strong light and shadow, pet portraits and bold logos work best; wide scenes with small details turn into specks that are too fine to carve.
About this tool
This tool turns a photo into a pumpkin carving pattern. The picture is converted to grayscale, its contrast is stretched, it is softened with a blur to merge fine texture into carvable shapes, and then it is split into two or three tones: cut out, shave the skin, and leave. Small specks that nobody could carve are merged into their surroundings, and any piece of skin that would be left floating inside a cut-out area is flagged so you can plan a bridge before you pick up a knife.
The two previews show the same design two ways: the stencil in black, gray and white as it will print (with floating pieces optionally marked in red), and a lit jack-o’-lantern at night where cut areas glow bright yellow, shaved areas glow orange and uncut skin stays dark. The From text mode renders a word or short phrase in a bold font — with a slider to thicken the strokes — for names, BOO, house numbers and party signs; letters are cut out by default, and letters with enclosed centers such as O, A, B, D, P, Q and R are flagged as needing bridges.
Good starting points: for a face, 3 tones with the default thresholds and Smoothing 2–3, then move the Cut-out threshold until the eyes, nose and mouth read clearly in the lit preview. For a pet or a silhouette, 2 tones and a higher Speck cleanup. For a first carving, 2 tones and a size of 6–8 inches, because large shapes are much easier to cut than fine detail. If the result looks like a negative, that is expected — the lit pumpkin preview shows what people will actually see.
The printable PDF is sized to US Letter or A4, with the design’s longest side set from 4 to 10 inches, a dashed trim line, a legend and a 1-inch check bar so you can confirm the printer did not scale it. The PNG is the black, gray and white stencil at the working resolution — 1000 to 1600 pixels on its long side, depending on the photo — for printing elsewhere or editing. Everything is processed on your own device; the photo is never uploaded.
Updated · Novpix LLC
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