Paint By Numbers Photo

turn photos into paint by numbers so I could paint them meself

You're better off with a program like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. They offer filters that you can play with to customize your photos to include all kinds of effects.

seen something like this on Dragons Den BBC2 program, but was not really good

answering one second ... I use Photoshop to Posterize the room, and it breaks the photo in "all forms'....
Worked great for me!

You can do this from a real photo, but it is better to create it from scratch. If you are interested, I can accommodate you. Check out some of my work. You can send me a photo of you and I can draw it, then split into numbered zones. Essentially, you must use a guideline for what colors to use. http://www.books20.com/artwork/paintings ...

Search for The Gimp. You can download a free version
that allows you to manipulate photos.
or follow this link: - http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
The option for what you want is in the Filters menu / EDGE detect.
Play with the settings and you can get a reasonable printed edges of faces, figures, etc.
Then, print a color image to guide you.