Free multi-layer stencil maker
Turn a photo into 2, 3 or 4 stencils, one per tone, with bridges on every island and matching registration marks on every sheet. Cut them on a Cricut, Silhouette or laser and paint light to dark. Free, and the photo never leaves this computer.
Faster with the free Chrome extension: right-click any picture on a website and send it straight to the multi-layer stencil maker. Add to Chrome · what it does
Extension installed. Right-click any picture on a website and choose Makerfern → Open this picture in… to bring it here.
Tones, not colours
A layered stencil works on light and shade: highlights, mid tones, shadows. This tool reads the photo's brightness and splits it where the photo itself has its tones, so a dark photo still gets a proper spread instead of three layers of nearly black. Each tone gets the average colour of its pixels as a paint suggestion.
Sheets that cut and line up
- Specks and pinholes removed, anything smaller than you set in millimetres at the finished size.
- Bridges on islands, so the middle of an eye or a letter stays attached to the sheet.
- The same outline and registration crosses on every sheet, so the layers line up by eye.
- Stacked layers by default, so a slightly misaligned sheet never leaves a bare gap.
All the sheets download free in one SVG, each in its own group. A separate file per sheet and batches are part of Pro, the same line as layered files in the converter.
How to paint one, from choosing the photo to lifting the last sheet, is in how to make a multi-layer stencil from a photo. For a single-colour stencil, use the stencil maker.
Questions
What is a multi-layer stencil?
A picture split into tones, with one stencil per tone. You paint the lightest first and the darkest last, lining each sheet up on registration marks, and the tones build the picture. It is how spray-paint portraits and layered street art are made.
How many layers do I need?
Two paint layers on a light surface give a bold graphic look; three is the classic portrait, with a light tone, a mid tone and the shadows. Four holds more detail but means more cutting and more chances to misalign.
What does “stack the layers” do?
Each sheet also opens over every darker area, so the mid-tone sheet paints under the shadows too. When the shadow sheet goes on slightly out of line, you see mid tone underneath rather than a gap of bare surface. Switch it off for the classic separate-layers method.
How do the registration marks work?
Every sheet has the same outline and four small crosses in the corners, cut in exactly the same places. Spray lightly through the crosses on the first sheet; when each later sheet goes down, line its crosses up with the painted ones.
Will the middle of an eye fall out?
No. Any piece of a sheet that would be cut free, an island such as the middle of an eye, is tied back with a thin bridge you set in millimetres. The layer list shows how many bridges each sheet has.