Digitizing for the non-digitizer

After asking several digitizers the all important question - "tell your readers that it takes a lot more than pressing a few keys create a beautiful design."

There are a few things that they want to share with you.  These will be in no particular order.

  • Truly good digitizing requires many things including, but not limited to, understanding underlay, software, bullet proof stitching, stitch types, elements of a design and distortion to mention just a few.
  • Digitizing is not just putting a few objects together and pressing a button.
  • Watching a demonstration does not constitute a lesson.  It is very likely you will not be able to duplicate it as shown.
  • Your project will not be a group of horizontal and vertical lines.  It will have many dimensions including slanting of stitches to create a 3D appearance.
  • You need to consider what fabric the final project will be using.  Digitizing for a silk is different than for denim.

Let's just consider a project rather than discussing software. 

You will need to start with a copy of an image. We have to know about that image too.  Is it a "raster" type?  A raster is a bitmap image and the extension may be one of - jpg, tif, gif or bmp.   This type is generally not sharp or clear so you will have some variation. 

The second type is called a "vector" which is created in specialized software like CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator.  The advantage of vector art is that it can be made very small, such as for a collar on a Onezie or as large as you want without distortion.  This is what is used by many good digitizers.

I am using this design as an example.

 

OK, now you have your design loaded and you are beginning to visualize your project in your mind. 

Now you have to be thinking like an artist.  You will be thinking about things such as scale, relative scale for multiple items, the angles of leaves and petals, and shading among other things.

Just for your information, this design only uses three colors, a red, green and pink. Additionally, it does not have any underlay.  Since it is a sketch and not meant to be too realistic, underlay is not needed. 

 

 

 

So, looking at the shading at as shown in the circle, not only did the digitizer use two colors, but they were intermingled to make a deeper color than pink and a lighter color than the red.

The stitching can be further apart or closer together to create a more natural appearance of the rose.

 

 

It is likewise for the bud color.  Making differences in the directions of the stitch gives the bud and the bud cover individual in their position. 

The satin outline of the petals is both thick and thin and curved for a more typical curvature of the petal as it starts to decline.

 

 

 

 Here you can see the details of the stitches. 

 

 

 

 

 

Still want to digitize?  If you want to start out with a small investment, KP Compositions is one way to get your feet wet. You can try it free for 30 days. Make sure you give yourself a lot of time to learn and grow, you may just be a rose. . . .

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