Images_Digital_Edition_April_2019

KB TIPS & TECHNIQUES 50 images APRIL 2019 W hen outsourcing your digitising, it’s easy to assume that all you need to do is send the digitiser your source image and billing information. However, while most digitisers will happily work with whatever you provide, the best ones – and consequently some of the best embroidered interpretations of your ‘art’ – benefit frommore input. The following are three items of information you should always provide to your digitiser to allow them to produce the best possible results from your artwork. Finished size Machine embroidery is restricted by the dimensions of the thread and the size of the needle, so it’s important to respect the recommended maximum and minimum stitch lengths and distances between elements if you want reliably clean stitching. Specifying a precise finished size that butts up against these measurements may prompt a discussion, but not stating it can often lead to your digitiser producing an easier to execute, and often undesirably large, rendition when faced with difficult details. Fabric specs Designs are only truly tested when they are sewed out on the finished garment: your digitiser can adjust for the qualities of that garment’s fabric, but only if you communicate its qualities upfront. This is especially important if you are using any exceedingly unstable or stretchy materials, particularly thick and/or lofty materials, those with heavily textured surfaces like ribbed knits, or those with high pile surfaces – each will require critical changes in the digitised file for best results. Likewise, digitisers looking to reduce density for lightweight materials need to know the potential colours on which a design will sew, so that they can account for the contrast between garment and thread. Garment type/construction Most embroiderers are well aware that cap designs should be sequenced and pathed to run from the bottom of the design to the Erich Campbell offers some practical advice on how to get the best results from your digitiser It’s good to talk www.images-magazine.com There’s a world of difference between the addressable height and accessibility of the design areas in these three caps of high, medium, and low profile. Moreover, the seam on the military piece on the right can cause issues with some design elements – knowing that can help a digitiser arrange, align and use underlay to compensate if crossing the seam is necessary At 10X magnification, it’s easy to see that what at first seems like standard support material inside this misbehaving cap is actually woven with thick, plastic vertical bars, something that explained a great deal about stitch quality problems in the finished piece. A digitiser may not be able to tame every type of material, but knowing the level of support and stretch is critical if they are to produce the best quality files At 10X magnification, it becomes clear how this satin border, bereft of an edge run underlay, suffered from a poor quality edge due to interaction with the textured material of the cap crown. Digitising can make a huge difference to edge quality on textured materials like this that are far from the standard smooth polyester of most caps Without these three items of information digitisers will generally aim to create ‘universal’ files in the vein of stock designs