I am just getting the hang of doing patterns and found quickly that the pixel count makes a big difference, the higher the pixel count the better and clear the pic is for patterns, i have tried so pretty blurred it was a task, my last one I worked was pretty high in pixel count and was a breeze, looking at this one the pixel count in 800x400 I think, I found pics above 1000 pixels are easier to work with, I practiced on a pic of my cat and it was like around 3100x2500 pixels and was easy to work on.