Embroidery Basics Articles

10/28/2016 Working With Photographs Embroidery Article
Not Yet Rated
Working With Photographs
By Barbara Geer on October 01, 2008
(Click Image to Enlarge)
Share Your Project
0 0 0
Most digitizers do not like to work from photos of any kind. The reason? Concrete lines are harder to find than on most logo artwork.
Also, with photos there are many shadows that either can be hard to create in a realistic fashion or can be left out altogether .
Some digitizers prefer to turn their artwork into vector files before they begin the process of digitizing. On a photograph, that can be
a long and arduous project.
My solution to this problem is to create the outline first. I chose a photograph of a car as
my example. I digitize many cars, and they all come to me as photos, often taken at car
shows. Sometimes, without a concrete outline, it is dif ficult to see where one car ends and
the other car begins, especially if the cars next to each other are the same color . This
particular photograph doesn’t have that problem, however .
When looking at the screen capture 1.1, you will see that the design, which so far is only
one color, starts with a color change. By putting the color change first, I can insert other
colors ahead of the outline that I created and won’t be working with the same color .
However, if I didn’t have that color change there, I would be working with the same color ,
making it dif ficult to see where I’m going with my stitches. This example has the
completed outline, shown in 3D to see the stitches.
Screen Capture 1.1
Because working in 3D takes more power from the computer than the flat version of the
stitches, I don’t work in 3D as I am digitizing. The black against the black of the picture would be very dif ficult to see, so I usually
choose a bright color , red or yellow or bright blue, while I am working. I only change the color once the area that I am working on is
finished.
Once the outline has been completed, it’ s time to start at the beginning. Y ou will notice that
on the right side of the screen capture 1.2, there is a black line between numbers 236 and
237. That is the insert line, showing me where I am placing each command. By this time, I
had completed the design. However , I have turned off the colors so that you can see the
order in which the car was digitized. Hence, the Xes on the color chart at the bottom of the
screen.
On most photos, there is a shadow below a car , caused by the sun shining on the car . I
like to use that shadow in the design, for the simple reason that there is so much black on
the bottom of any vehicle. If this design were to be stitched on a black garment, much of
the detail in the design gets lost. Placing a shadow of another color under the vehicle
makes it stand out from the garment and adds a realistic touch to the design. I usually use
a light fill for two reasons. One, it doesn’t add so many stitches to what would already be a Screen Capture 1.2
quite intensive design. T wo, a light fill provides just enough color to contrast with any
garment. Here I chose a tan, like gravel, but gray for concrete, or charcoal for pavement would also work.
I have digitized so many cars, that I have found a system that works pretty well for me, and
consequently, I almost always go in the same order . The next color in the design is the
silver wheels.
I should back up a second and mention that I didn’t do all of the black outline at the end. I
could have chosen to make the tires part of the last outline, but I did not. While I am a firm
believer in changing thread colors as few times as possible, there are times when
layering the design is also important, and may cause the use of a color more than one
time. This is one of those times.
https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/emb_learning/article/564/working­with­photographs.aspx 1/4