JANOME Embroidery Software Instruction Book
Chapter 12 Digitizing with Backdrops
88
Automatic digitizing techniques produce best
results with images of the type found in clipart
libraries or created from scratch in a graphics
package. Automatic digitizing can work with
images from other sources but they require some
preparation. This is because most commonly
available images are not made up of solid colors.
Scanners introduce noise, while graphics packages
perform ‘dithering’ and ‘anti-aliasing’ to improve
image print quality.
Automatic digitizing works least effectively with
photographic images which may contain many
dithered colors and complex forms. With
photographs, however, you can pick out shapes
that you want to embroider, leaving out
unnecessary detail.
Scanned images
Images scanned from
hardcopy drawings or
existing embroidery typically
contain a lot of introduced
‘noise’. While they can be
used as input to automatic
digitizing, once again, best
results are achieved with
relatively clean images
consisting of solid color
blocks. Typically, logos and
simple drawings scanned
from business cards,
letterheads, books,
magazines, cards fall into this category.
Noisy images typically need to be prepared by
reducing the color count and sharpening the
outlines. See
Image preparation techniques
for
details.
Dithered images
Dithering is a software technique which combines
existing colors in a checkerboard arrangement of
pixels. It is typically used to simulate colors that
are missing from an image palette.
Like noisy images, dithered images need to be
color-reduced before use. Be aware, however, that
while the software is excellent at processing
dithered colors within a defined outline, it does not
work so well with non-outlined images. See
Preparing Images for Automatic Digitizing
for
details.
Anti-aliased images
Anti-aliasing is a software technique similar to
dithering which is used to soften hard outlines
where color blocks intersect. It produces smoother
outlines by ‘blurring’ the pixels where colors join.
Clean picture with
well-defined outlines
Clean picture with
well-defined color blocks
Complex picture, needs
editing to remove
background and clean color
blocks
Image containing a lot of
scanner ‘noise’
Dithered color
blocks
Summary of Contents for Digitizer MB
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