Auto Digitizing for embroidering, Is it good or bad?
Before anything, we will give a summarized explanation of what digitizing is for those who are not familiar with the embroidery industry.
Commercial or industrial CAMFive embroidery machines or any other Brand, need a file of the design that one would like to embroider. Different from a printer, this file will have precise details on how the machine will sow upon the cloth, details such as the size of the stitching, where to jump from one zone to another, how far that jump will be, where to cut the thread, when to change the needle to start a new color, what needle this must be, the style of stitching, etc.
All of these complicated instructions must be inserted by the designer when he creates an embroidery design. The software to create these designs have evolved a lot across the years and now these instructions are very automatized and relatively easy to incorporate. Furthermore, there are multiple options and shortcuts that make creating a design for the embroidery much simpler to the point we can embroider including sequin devices and other elements that decorate even more.
Auto Digitizing:
Practically all the new software for embroidery design have tools that make the process of detailing designs automatically, basically you import a standard design such as a JPG and pretty much with one click and it converts the design into a digitized file for embroidery machines, this is the process called auto digitizing.
Now the grand question is, Is it good or bad to use this option to obtain our designs for embroidering?
We believe that it is not a good option. Everyone has their opinions and expertize when creating designs or commercializing the digitizing software itself, but let us explain our reasons:
Currently in the market and especially online, we’ll find thousands of companies and people dedicated to provide digitizing services, from in the country and out of the country, basically you send them the design and they will digitize it and send it back digitized and ready to be used in your embroidery machine. Now of course that sounds amazing, but the problem is that most of them don’t actually digitize the design, they auto digitize the design which takes a few minutes and with luck they make a few touches and done. Others retouch your design with more details and the result is better, but why do they retouch it? The reason for that is that when the auto digitizing starts it’s process, it always creates many mistakes, unnecessary jumps, stitching errors and non-optimized designs which is definitely unwanted, plus it might include inadequate stitching in some areas, or stitching one over the other, or too small or too long and more.
These errors cause that once finalized, the embroidery machine won’t be able to créate a good looking final product, which during the embroider it can cause thread breaks, needle breaks, constant stopping, it can break the jewelry you are try to add and at times y can uncalibrate the machine. All this can be caused by a bad design.
We recomend no to use auto digitzing software, no matter how advanced it is and if you are going to use it, revise the design and make detailed corrections which on occasion can be a little time consuming. But of course to use this software it takes practice, but when one continues to practice you can become a master.
Recomendation:
If you end up hiring someone to digitize your design, make sure to emphasize for them not to auto digitize it, to use the regular service, also with time you should learn how to use the tools of your digitizing software so that way you know if you get back a design that is good or not.Remebr to try more tan one Company or person, because if a problema arises when embroidering you will notice.
A good digitizing is 80% of the job, the other 20% is the machine.