A fascinating topic, with questions and answers that always have eyes rolling and, generations later, embroidery digitizing still manages to leave many scratching their heads. You have to admit that it is fascinating that, with so much new technology and many claiming to produce embroidery instantly, the secrets to good embroidery remain elusive! Enter my favorite exclamation: “It’s relative!” This can aptly precede most answers to digitizing-related questions.

If you’ve enjoyed just about any form of embroidery education, you’ll probably be familiar with thoughts like:

Didn’t he just say these stitches should be angled this way? Suddenly they’re supposed to go another way?

I don’t get it! A minute ago I heard that such a satin column must have diagonal underlay!

I’m ready to pull my hair out, I’ve tried this 10 ways, and nothing works!

But, if you find yourself thinking such thoughts a bit less frequently, then you have entered a comfort zone and are now ready to take your digitizing to the next level. . . .

Getting started

While my title above can be expansive and is more befitting of a book title, we’ll attempt condensing it to a few pointers to make your work faster and more profitable. The example silhouette on page 33 is just a random image. It’s a medium-quality jpg, which may be considered “mediocre” art (see Figure 1).

Effectively visualizing and working in practical screen color reduces eye strain. You may receive art in the strangest forms, and not all artwork is readily available in vector form, so quickly assessing what may be necessary to perform your task prevents you from losing time. There is huge hype over what format art should be tendered in, and numerous times art is sent in formats that are either difficult to read, or has people hunting around for ways to convert it to a readable format. The run-around can cause time loss, and really put you under pressure, so making sure you request your art in standard formats is essential. Even when dealing with ostensibly sophisticated corporate clients, you are usually dealing with HR managers or receptionists who really just want the job done, and are not interested in the nitty-gritty of “formats.”

Most are familiar with jpg, bmp or pdf formats. The issues usually come in with “vector” formats. You can request EMF (Enhanced Metafile). Why should you? The reason is simple. It’s usually all you really need, and can be viewed in any email or by standard Windows viewers.

The graphic factor

Popular graphics packages easily export this format. If your embroidery software imports vector files, simply import and you’re ready to begin. Our example shows an ordinary bitmap image. Generally, its good to work 10-15 percent larger than the actual finished size. Again, this is relative to the type of design at handⁱ. In this instance, it is not a very complex design so even 50 percent larger can be reduced with limited adjustment required. In more complex designs 10-15 percent allows you to downsize to the finished size, giving you enhanced accuracy. You can also work in 100 percent image mode where practical.

Even relatively simple-looking art can present complexity in digitizing. Bridging the gap between knowing inches and the metric system constantly frustrates many digitizers, but quickly sizing your images is essential to get you off the mark fast. Setting up grid and guide parameters is usually an excellent assistance (see Figure 2).

If you don’t have vector art, you might consider sectioning off the art. It does help to be slightly artistic as being a digitizer usually means you have to be able to touch up, recreate and modify artwork fast, and even show modified artwork to clients before digitizing. A vector trace can assist you. Being able to ascertain design pitfalls, and presenting optimum solutions before going ahead with designs is essential to avoid time wastage. A high percentage of clients may not really notice modifications you make, but you can be sure that everyone will notice if your result is bad. Be confident and upfront about what modification is necessary to make a design work. You will get forceful and insistent clients, but letting them know what is practical in advance,  and being plain about costs to redo designs contrary to your advice, will serve you well in the long run.

To be honest, I create many designs where a client says, “My customer insists that it must be the same as this image.” You might call it “digitizing license” but I believe that it is an imperative for a digitizer to exert such influence over the design process, as is practical to the outcome of the embroidery stitching process (see Figure 3).

Most advanced graphics programs allow successful vectorization, but from an embroidery perspective, not all that’s vectorized is gold! Be sure to always try to obtain the least nodes in vectors, and you will be overjoyed to know that editing vector outlines will then not take you all year. Most find the Bezier Style common to graphics programs quite daunting, but learning to edit and manipulate outlines is simpler than graphics creation, for many.

Depending on your embroidery software, you may have drawing and shaping tools to allow you to create or modify vectors. The ability to manipulate outlines allows you to modify your backdrop.

Almost ready to digitize....

Modify the shape, and add in technical guides for yourself. If you found yourself sold on converted vectors materializing into excellent embroidery in a click, you may find a degree of disappointment in attempting more than simple designs, without being fully conversant in outline manipulation; and, on average, that means being familiar with the Bezier mode of most graphics programs.

When you look at a flat piece of art such as our eagle, you really need to see some “form” to assist you in digitizing, so practice “creating” to the best of your ability. Creating designated sectors will not only simplify your work, but also allow you to complete designs faster, and still give you a better end product. If you do decide to create the design while bearing “possible future edits” in mind, then you have lessened your workload today, and tomorrow (see Figures 5, 6 and 7).

Your modified artwork may look something like this. Recreating the outlines quickly removes the irritation of working with a grainy image. As a “next-level digitizer,” you need to be able to work with what a client provides. Not all have the luxury of receiving vectorized art, and demanding that type of art from clients also puts them into new financial territory. As a digitizer, you also need to hone your skill sets in the related field of graphics because, contrary to what many think, it is an essential in the field of digitizing. Besides speeding up your work when you have reached a reasonable level of proficiency, you will find that it can usually set you apart from competitors that lay such demands at the feet of clients. The truth of the matter is, clients have no real interest in what goes on behind the scenes; all they really want is to just get back a design. You are not required to be Picasso, you just need to fine-tune your skills to take care of some basic artistic building blocks.

Having a bit of foresight generally means never having to worry about hindsight. Every design you create will require a varied approach, and sometimes even the initial design you created will require quick modifications. From the very outset, you need to create the design architecture in a way that allows you to easily modify (see Figure 8).

Recreating your guide outline should take 5-10 minutes if you have no further  purpose for it after digitizing. If you decide it will be used for print or engraving purposes, you can spend longer to refine it, and save that vector file.

Once you have a clearer visualization of the image segmentation, you are immediately capable of an enhanced digitizing result. Strangely enough, the degree of complexity with small designs can in many ways be higher than with larger designs, and creating depth and appeal even with tiny details is what helps set you apart from competitors.

Let’s start digitizing....

This simple eagle, may not be as simple as it seems to many digitizers, especially if you just received the flat black art as initially shown.

Assuming we decided the initial size will be relatively small, you can consider digitizing a part for a lighter-weight thread with a finer needle, and continue the rest of the design for normal thread. This can ensure a sharpness on finer details (see Figure 9, 10, 11 and 12).

Now that you have a vector guideline, you can zoom in or out without worrying about a grainy image and clarity issues while you work. Ten minutes of pre-digitizing preparation can save you lots of time in your actual work.

Creating vector guides in your work for absolutely any other reason is also practical so, while you have the benefit of gridlines and guidelines, you should create additional lines as necessary. Your software may include information tooltips that show you the exact length and angle of stitch placements, which is excellent for digitizers who constantly work in high zoom factors.

Your design is now complete....

Your finished design may resemble the above “stitch representation” (see Figure 12).

You may make numerous modifications to the amount of detail you decide to use. Again, this is relative to the sizes you work with. As you go smaller on design sizes, its prudent to keep the design as simple as possible. Although the eye is doodled into the graphic at a small size, there is no need to really depict that in a simple embroidery, although it can actually be shown depending on the thread weight used.

Possibilities and alternatives

This is a simple example of what you can do with just the initial vector trace, with no real modification. The conversion takes a few seconds, but editing the ends of the fill areas to compensate for the push and pull on fabric can take a short while. As you can see, the results of conversions are only as good as your art preparation is. As a digitizer, you need to quickly determine what the extent of the vector creation means (see Figure 13).

In many cases, backdrop images are discarded, so deciding what possible merit creating an initial vector may have is paramount to whether you maintain your bottom line. It’s pointless going into sometimes tedious operations of vector conversion, editing your vector, and modifying it only to use as a backdrop that you’ll just discard anyway. It is only useful to spend time creating a vector if you have a specific additional purpose which may be a vector graphic that you’d like to use for print purposes, laser engraving, a vinyl cutⁱ or any other purpose that may specifically require fine-tuned vector art.

As with most interpretations of artwork, the approach taken by various digitizers will vary. The semblances, however, should be similar to give you the best quality small design. This is just one example of an approach to a design. In embroidery, absolutely every design may require a myriad of modifications and inspection, in relation to its position, fabric, stabilizer, thread type, stitch angles, stitch types, machine tensions and speeds. Practicing on a new type of image each few days will assist you in practical segmentation before digitizing. With each attempt, you will find that you will begin to work much faster once you create the initial areas to digitize. Constant practice will also teach you that every design does require a unique approach and, while many may try to categorise settings, or maintain a single approach to what may seem similar, it should be remembered that, in embroidery, almost everything is “relative.”

In conclusion to a prelude

Even experienced and advanced digitizers tend to veer away from what may be deemed “automatic” features in software. In many instances this does make good sense, but technology can also be embraced and used at relevant points in the design process. The fusion of digitizer skill and software capability does lend itself to enhanced output. Contrary to what many may feel, all embroidery software does not do “the same thing.” Different digitizers also have varied approaches, so neither are digitizing softwares the same. I would tend to agree that many offer similar seeming feature sets, but these are always subject to the requirement and capability of the digitizer (see Figure 14).

Enhancing your capability actually does depend to some degree on the software you use. Taking your digitizing to the next level is actually quite an interesting journey. Enjoy it! Along the way, you are bound to find many myths exposed in the wash, and also find techniques and processes that you didn’t even consider that can speed up your design work and the all-important bottom line.

All you do will always be “relative” to the position, fabric weave, seams, synthetic fabric composition, leather synthetic composition, needle type, stabilizer type, thread color/age/weight or numerous other factors that will quickly lead you to exclaim: “It’s relative!”