Answers before you start gridding.

A grid maker lays a grid overlay over your photo so you can copy, crop, or compose from it accurately. Grid Maker Pro is a free browser grid maker: drop in a reference, pick one of 82 overlays, position it over the subject, then export or print the result. Nothing installs and nothing uploads.

Open the tool, drop your image onto the canvas, and choose an overlay — the grid is drawn over the picture straight away. From there you move, scale, and rotate the overlay until it fits the crop and the subject angle you actually have. The Get Started page walks the upload, overlay, adjust, and export flow end to end.

No. Grid Maker Pro runs in any modern browser, with no desktop app, plugin, extension, or licence key to manage. If you want it on your home screen, your browser can install it as an app from the address bar.

No. There is no signup, no login, and no email — the tool opens and works the moment the page loads. Privacy is not tied to an account either: the no-upload workflow is the same whether you are signed in anywhere or not.

JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF all work. Your image is read on your own device rather than sent anywhere, so the practical ceiling is your browser and device memory rather than an upload limit.

No. The grid is drawn over a copy on screen and your original file is never modified. You can export a gridded copy to print, or export a transparent grid-only PNG and lay it over a reference you already have — useful when the print is the only copy you own.

82 overlays across 11 categories: basic drawing grids, artist guides, composition, advanced composition, dynamic symmetry, perspective, specialty grids, sacred geometry, typography, design templates, and architecture. Browse them in the Grid Library, or read the annotated 82 composition overlays guide.

Use a square drawing grid for transferring a drawing, the rule of thirds for a quick composition check, the golden ratio for proportional refinement, the Loomis head for portraits, and a perspective grid for scenes with depth.

Yes. Stack as many overlays as you need and move, scale, and rotate each one independently of the others. Stacking earns its keep when one grid does not answer the whole question — a composition grid over a portrait guide, for instance.

Yes — every overlay carries its own colour picker, opacity slider, and line width. An eyedropper samples a colour straight from your photo, which is the fastest fix when the grid disappears into the image.

Yes. The square grid runs from 4 to 40 cells along the short side; the rectangular and custom grids take independent row and column counts up to 50, so you can match a grid to an odd crop instead of forcing squares onto it.

Yes — cell labels are a toggle on the drawing grids. Naming squares is what makes the method workable on a long piece: you can stop mid-drawing, note the square you were in, and pick the same one up tomorrow.

Yes. The fixed-measurement grid takes a real spacing in millimetres, centimetres, or inches, with a heavier line every few cells and measurements labelled along the edges. It is the overlay to reach for when the drawing has to come out at a specific physical size.

Yes. The transfer grid takes your reference dimensions and your canvas dimensions and reports what one cell measures on each, so you can copy square for square at any scale without doing the arithmetic yourself. How to enlarge a drawing works through the same maths by hand.

Yes. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo, Esc deselects the active overlay, holding Alt disables snapping for free positioning, Ctrl+P prints, and the ? key opens the full shortcut list.

Yes. Black and white, brightness, and contrast are built in. Dropping a reference to greyscale is the usual move when you want to read values rather than colour before you start drawing.

Yes — PNG, JPG, PDF, or SVG at 150, 300, or 600 DPI, sized to A5 through A2, Letter, Legal, or square paper, with the overlays locked exactly where you placed them. You can also copy the result to the clipboard or print it directly. For drawing, matte paper produces less glare than glossy.

Yes. A transparent grid-only PNG lets you drop the same grid over artwork in another app, or print it as a clean guide sheet to work under.

Yes. Save named workspaces in your browser, and copy a share link that reopens the identical grid, position, and settings on any device. Single overlays also have their own deep links, so a bookmark such as /?overlay=ruleOfThirds opens the tool ready to go.

Yes. It runs in any modern browser on mobile, tablet, or desktop, with nothing to install — though a tablet or desktop screen is more comfortable for precise placement.

You divide the reference into equal squares, draw the same squares on your paper, then copy the contents of one square at a time. Each square is small enough to judge accurately, so proportion errors stay contained instead of compounding across the whole drawing. A plain square drawing grid is all it takes.

Keep the same number of squares on both surfaces and make the paper squares larger: a 4-inch square copied into an 8-inch square doubles the drawing with no measuring. Our guide to enlarging a drawing with the grid method works through the arithmetic and the common traps.

Fewer squares for loose blocking, more for detail. A 4×4 grid is enough to place a figure on the page; a portrait usually wants 8×8 or finer before the eyes and mouth land where they should. Too fine a grid slows you down without improving accuracy.

Around half an inch on a 4×6 photo, an inch on anything larger. One-inch squares are the studio default because they double and halve cleanly: the same grid scales to a 2-inch or 4-inch square on the paper without any awkward arithmetic.

Yes — same count, different size. Matching counts with larger squares on the paper is exactly what enlarges the drawing, which is why both grids have to stay evenly spaced and share the same proportions as the crop.

Top-left, then across and down, so your drawing hand does not drag through finished squares. Draw the paper grid lightly in graphite — it should disappear under the work rather than have to be erased out of it.

Start with the rule of thirds for a fast, decisive placement; switch to the golden ratio when the composition needs a softer, more gradual off-centre emphasis. Both are one click in the tool, and stacking them shows you exactly where the two disagree.

No — the grid method has been standard studio practice since the Renaissance, and Dürer, Van Gogh, and Chuck Close all worked over grids. A grid handles proportion so your attention can go to drawing; our guide on whether tracing is cheating takes the longer view.

Artists, photographers, designers, architects, quilters, cross-stitch and knitting crafters, tattooists, teachers, and tabletop game masters all reach for a grid overlay for the same reason: accurate placement. The use-case guides show what each of them typically reaches for first.

Yes, free forever. There is no paid tier, no trial, and no metered usage; exports carry no watermark. Every overlay and every export option is open to everyone.

No. The tool runs entirely in your browser and there is no server to upload to, so your reference image never leaves your device. That is a structural promise rather than a policy one — there is no backend that could receive the file.

None. No ads, no watermark on exports, and no quiet downscaling of what you save — the file you export is the format and resolution you chose. There is no upgrade that removes anything, because nothing is withheld.

Yes, after the first visit. The tool is stored on your device by the browser, so it opens without a connection — useful in a studio, a life-drawing session, or anywhere the signal is poor. Installing it from your browser makes that the normal way it opens.

Yes — a counted grid is the same problem in every medium. Set the rows and columns to match your fabric count, quilt blocks, or wall sections, turn on cell labels, and work square by square. The guides for cross-stitch, quilters, and muralists cover each workflow in detail.

Yes, subject to your own contract terms. Because nothing is uploaded, private references, commissions, classroom images, and studio work stay on your machine.

It is built by Sujith Puthran, a working artist of 15+ years, who wrote it because the grid tools he could find were either paywalled or wanted his reference photos. How these pages are researched covers the editorial side.

Change the line colour first, then adjust opacity and line width. White reads well on dark images, near-black on light ones, and the eyedropper lets you pick a colour the photo does not already contain.

Use the transform controls. Most overlays need to be moved, rotated, or scaled to match the actual crop and the angle the subject sits at — the overlay is a guide you place, not a fixed frame.

Email support@gridmakerpro.com or use the contact page. Include the browser, device, image type, and overlay name. Overlay requests get read — several of the 82 started as one.