Stitches

How can I use the gimp program to digitize artwork for embroidery?

trying to see if I can use gimp program to digitize artwork for embroidery? Thanks

Public Comments

1. You have to make the picture have large pixels that match to your stitchery. This is normally done with the size command. If you think your embroidery is going to look good with (to pick some numbers) 200 patches of color across and 110 down, you change the pixel count of the picture to that (by pixels, not by size) The program will ask you choices, perhaps Closest Color, and produce a patchy image that is small - so you enlarge it on the screen. Each pixel will have a single color that follows the rule you chose - Closest or Web color or .... If you don't like the result, you will have to play around with the choices and perhaps even with the colors - GIF files can have the color palette edited. Even tho the image size is small, you can force it to print bigger to act as a guide. And to be honest, if you look around, there are probably sites that will digitize images to embroidery and deliver thread colors, etc. Cost money?
2. Yes of course, GIMP can do anything. Try this: Open any image in GIMP, click Image > Scale Image > Reduce the width to 100 pixels, hit Scale Click Image > Mode > Indexed. In the dialog that opens, type the number of colours you want to use (the number of colours of thread you will use), lets say 10. Click Convert. Click Image > Scale Image > set the width to 3000 pixels, set the resolution to 300ppi, under Quality select Interpolation "None". Click Scale. Click Layer > New Layer > OK. Click Filter > Render > Pattern > Grid - now set up the grid dialog as follows: Width: 1, 1, 0 Spacing 30, 30, 2 Offset 0, 0, 6 Click OK. Job Done. Here's an example of the sort of thing you can expect: http://oi53.tinypic.com/2it2a2w.jpg If you want to make it feint, click Image > Flatten Image > then click Colours > Brightness and Contrast - increase the brightness slider, click ok. Repeat if necessary to make it fade even more.