"But I'm not an artist"
Many times I hear people say "I could never learn to digitize because I'm not an artist".
People often confuse "digitizing" with "being an artist". While digitizing does require creativity, the artwork used for digitizing embroidery designs is usually purchased from an artist. That is to say, from a person who specializes in drawing, not in turning drawings into embroidery designs. That purchased artwork is then used by the digitizer as the template for their embroidery designs.
The ability to digitize is learning to use the software to convert a piece of existing artwork into an embroidery design, not learning to draw. The starting point in digitizing software is to bring the artwork you will be digitizing into the program to use as a template. Once you have the artwork in place, turning it into an embroidery design is more like tracing and coloring in a coloring book than drawing.
The first step in digitizing then is learning how to bring the artwork you are going to digitize into the program and what to do with it once it is in front of you.
"See and Do"As I said on the home page of this site, the software used for digitizing can be intimidating because there is a lot of stuff on your computer screen when you open the program. The best way to learn digitizing is to SEE IT DONE then DO IT YOURSELF.
In a few minutes you will be watching the first video lesson that will help you understand what to do with the software and get you started, but before we start the video there are a few more basic questions and concerns that most people have concerning digitizing that I should answer for you.
"Digitizing Software"There are more than a dozen software programs available for digitizing embroidery designs currently. Several of them are really very good programs. And a couple of them are not so good. As a beginner in digitizing, how can you tell which is which? How can you evaluate a program that you already own or one that you are thinking of buying?
The starting point for evaluating digitizing software is the question "Does it provide tools for manual digitizing or not?" Manual digitizing means you are able to control the placement and type of stitches used in the design.
(Background info: Another term used for this is "manual punch" and this term dates back to before computers were used for creating mass production embroidery. Before computers were used to control the embroidery placement, a "digitizer" traced over a piece of artwork with a stylus attached mechanically to a series of embroidery machines that followed the movements of his pen while they stitched "live" onto fabric. If the digitizer made a mistake, it was duplicated onto dozens of garments and ruined all of the at the same time.)
"What You Want"
You want software that allows you to control all the details of the design yourself - ie: manual digitizing. The other type of software (which does not include this ability) is known as "auto-digitizing" software. The auto-digitizing programs take a piece of artwork and interpret how it should be digitized then do everything automatically for you. The problem with auto-digitizing software is that the intelligence built into the software is not as intelligent as you are. The designs created by auto-digitizing software will not be digitized as well as what you can do by digitizing it yourself manually.
Another problem with auto-digitizing software is that some artwork you bring in will lend itself to auto-digitizing fairly well while other artwork will not work well at all. We will have a video on auto-digitizing later in our series, but for answering the question of which software you should use, you just need to be aware that software that will ONLY auto-digitize will not give an acceptable quality result 95% of the time.
Several digitizing programs include an auto-digitizing program AND manual digitizing tools also. This gives you the best of both worlds if you can auto-digitize a piece of artwork that lends itself to being auto-digitized, then improve on the areas of the design that it didn't do as well as you would like.
(Side note: One huge problem has been that some programs that only auto-digitize have been promoted by unscrupulous or uninformed sales people as being both auto and manual digitizing programs when they in fact have no manual digitizing tools in them at all. Beware of sales people who don't let you see and try out the software's manual digitizing capabilities!)
"Favorite Program"There are several programs that qualify as top picks with us and other digitizers. (A complete list of favorite programs are discussed in detail on this page.) Our favorite program is called "Generations". Some of the reasons why it's our favorite are...
Full manual digitizing capabilities as well as auto-digitizing features
All tools available on one screen - no switching views needed
Made in America with full support available by people who speak English as their native language
Software updates do not continue to add cost to ownership
Special features emphasize making digitizing faster and easier
(Note: The "special features" are a LONG list and I have included some of those features here.)
"Your Digitizing Software For These Lessons"The lessons on 30 Day Digitizer are taught on Generations software. If you don't already own Generations then you will receive a complimentary trial copy of the program to use for 30 days. The trial version includes the ability to do everything that the full purchased version can do. However, there is a timer set on the program that only allows it to run for 30 days.
At the end of the 30 days the program will stop running and you are asked to return the trial pack back to us. If you don't return the trial version then we ask you to pay for the cost of replacing the trial version ($50) so we have another copy for our next group of students to use.
"Transferring Basic Techniques"
The basic techniques of digitizing are the same in most good digitizing programs. Just like when using a word processor or a spreadsheet program, once you learn to use one digitizing program it should be fairly easy for you to transfer that knowledge to another program, at least as far as the basics of digitizing go. What will not transfer is when you use one of the "special features" that are included in Generations that are not found in another program. We do make it as easy as possible for you to own your own copy of Generations if you choose to do so.
"Lets Get Started"
Our overview above is finished now and we are ready to get started with Lesson #1.
If you DO NOT YET have your copy of Generations software then you will be able to do steps #1 and #2 below (watch the video and read through the lesson files) but you won't be able to DO step #3 which is to do the lesson assignment at the end.
If you have just placed your 30 Day Digitizer order and are waiting for the trial version to arrive, then you should have the software in just a few days as we ship via Fed-X Standard Air which is a two or three day trip to most places in the USA. (If you haven't ordered the full 30 Day Digitizer series yet then you can do so here.)
If you DO have your copy of Generations already then you should be ready to follow these 3 steps...
1) Watch this VIDEO
2) View and print out the WRITTEN LESSON
3) Do everything in the LESSON 1 ASSIGNMENT
"What's In The Video"This first video is called "Manual Digitizing" and it runs about 1 hour in length. To view the video you will need a Windows PC with a sound card and speakers, as well as software for playing a WMV file. Microsoft provides software for playing WMV files for free and they estimate that 99% of PC's sold in the USA in the last 10 years already have that software installed. (If you don't have software installed for playing WMV files then you can get Microsoft Media Player version 10 or Microsoft Media Player version 11 for free by clicking on the links in this sentence.) Mac users may need to find alternate software for playing WMV files.
Along with a lot of other things, this video covers...
A good introduction to digitizing
Identifies the tools in the software
Discussed what should be digitized first
Explains the downside of "zooming"
Teaches how to use the gradient fill feature
and demonstrates the digitizing process in it's entirety from start to finish.
Once you have watched the video, come back here for steps #2 and #3.
Step #1) Video Lesson
Click here to play video #1 OR right-click here and choose "Save As" to save the video on your computer hard drive and play it without being online.
(Note: If you have a slow internet connection then your best bet is to use the "Save As" method to download the video to your computer and then play it from your hard drive.)
Step #2) Written Lesson
Download the written lessons for this module here. They are in PDF format. You probably already have the Adobe Reader on your computer but if you are one of those rare folks who don't, you can get it for free from Adobe here.
Step #3) Lesson Assignment & Help Files
After you have watched the video a few times and read through the lessons for module #1 it's time to try it yourself. Download the assignment and help files for lesson #1 here.
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