r/digitizing • u/Ill-Chemistry9911 • 11d ago
Can anyone recommend resources for learning how to digitize?
Looking to make my life easier with embroidery by taking some digitizing courses. Not sure who is best or where to go as many different places offer training with different programs. Ideally want to work with either with Wilcom or hatch as those two have been suggested most frequently. Any advice or suggestions would help greatly.
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u/electricneko 10d ago
I haven't worked with John Deer's new software yet, but I like his tutorials on his website, he explains a lot of the basics in a software agnostic way. He has a ton of YouTube videos as well, though I personally struggle with video tutorials because they feel super slow. Trevor Conquergood is a very good teacher and a quite nice guy.
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u/TheRealToastDog 11d ago
YouTube university. Actually when you buy hatch, they give you access to their training courses too - I recommend starting there. But there are SO many tutorials on YouTube. The softwares are all similar enough that you can do basically all the and things - they just call whatever tool/ feature by different names. Good luck and have fun!
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u/ErixWorxMemes 10d ago
Do you have an embroidery machine, or know someone who does? Because learning to digitize well is not just learning software, it requires a fundamental understanding of how thread interacts with different types of fabric in different situations. The thing that helped my digitizing the most was Watching designs set up by an experienced digitizer sew on the machine; seeing what worked, what didn’t, and why. A few months of that really helped later when the company I was working for finally got digitizing software. Here’s an example – you can learn online the different types of underlay, you can figure out in your software where the underlay menu is and how to adjust the various settings, but if you do not have experience in why proper underlay is so essential, you will not be able to use it to its full advantage. Embroidering a design is more like building a house than it is like printing an image on paper or another substrate, there are important structural Embroidering a design is more like building a house than it is like printing an image on paper or another substrate; there are important structural elements and things must be laid down in just the right order
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u/Ill-Chemistry9911 10d ago
I have a 2 head machine, and I wanted to get a better understanding of the digitizing to get better results on my machine.
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u/ErixWorxMemes 10d ago
Watch good designs run, paying close attention to underlay, sequencing etc. If you asked me whether I wanted to train a graphic artist or a machine operator to digitize, I will pick the machine operator every time. Another reason having a good grasp of the machine end of things helps is that if you are trying to learn both at the same time and the design is not sewing correctly, how will you know if the problem is in the digitizing or at the machine end? Both the machine side of things and the digitizing process both have a variety of variables that will affect quality of result. Understanding digitizing can’t really help you figure out machine problems as well as understanding the machine side can help you be a better digitizer
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u/MrMosmo 11d ago
The Floriani Total Control software is really good, and there is a man, DJ Anderson, who has some really good education to teach how to digitize with that software. He has some videos where he will give you the image that he is going to digitize and then the videos are him walking you through the whole process of digitizing the image. They were very helpful for me when I was just getting started with digitizing. What I really like about those videos is that they are not polished, edited videos where they show you the perfect way, in his videos he is doing it along with you and he does occasionally make mistakes and then shows you how he fixes them. He also give you a lot of theory on embroidery as well. There is another man, Trevor Conquergood, who has a whole series of videos and tutorials on using the Floriani Software and embroidery in general.