Picking and changing colors is very easy and the results are rewarding
Choosing beautiful colors for your projects is one of the most fun parts of machine embroidery. Hatch Embroidery offers you very intuitive tools to ensure your designs always end up looking beautiful. You do not need to be a color expert to get it right!
These are the various techniques that are available to customize your design:
- Recoloring object-by-object
- Recoloring entire color blocks
- Picking and applying colors from the design
- Recycling colors within the existing design palette
- Choosing new base colors and cycling the rest
Change colors
You will use the Design Palette to change colors for embroidery objects. By default it sits on the bottom of the software interface, but you can pop it out and place it on the top if you wish. The Design Palette has up to 128 color slots.When you open a new, blank design, it contains a palette of 30 ‘Hatch colors’. These don’t correspond to actual threads but can be matched to the thread chart of your choice.
Any changes you make to the Design Palette are saved with the actual design.
If you want to change thread charts and assign specific threads to your design, you will use the My Threads docker. The My Threads docker contains potentially thousands of thread colors – as many as are available within a given thread chart. You can change colors as you like. See ‘Customize your design palette’ below.
If you open an existing design, colors will usually have been already assigned to actual threads – e.g. ‘Isacord 40’. Used colors are tagged with a blue dot, as shown. When you hover the mouse pointer over a color, you can view its code, name, and chart in the tooltip.
To change colors, select an object in the design window or Resequence docker. Alternatively, use the Resequence docker to select an entire color block. The nearest matching color, based on the currently selected thread chart, is sorted to the top of the My Threads docker.
Scroll through the My Threads list and double-click the desired color. The object changes color, the Design Palette is updated, and the selected color becomes the ‘Current Color’.
If you want to change the color of selected objects within an existing color block, the new color is added to the Design Palette, as shown. Note that the red color block in the Resequence list has been split in two by the new color. Colors added in this way may need resequencing for more efficient stitchout.
Pick and apply existing colors
Pick colors from existing objects using the Pick Color tool. Click on a color in the design or click a color block in the Resequence docker as shown.
Selected colors are transferred to the Design Palette as the ‘current color’. At the same time, the companion tool, ‘Apply Current Color’, is activated. Click selected objects in the design to apply the selected color as shown.
Customize your design palette
Often you will want to assign your own thread chart to a Design Palette. For instance:
- If you open a design which uses colors from a thread chart you don’t have, you can match them to a preferred thread chart.
- When you convert vector graphics in Graphics mode, colors are appended to the color palette as RGB values. These can be matched to an actual thread chart.
- If you read a stitch file, color information will be appended to the Design Palette. Again, you can match these colors to an actual thread chart.
Hatch Embroidery software lets you manage thread colors for each design. Select from a wide range of commercial thread charts. Find and sort specific threads by color code. Replace colors with ones from a different thread chart. Add or remove color slots as required.
You can customize your design palette by using the + and – buttons to add or remove color slots from your palette.
Click the Change Design Color button to open the My Threads docker.
Click My Thread Charts and use the dialog to select your current/preferred thread chart/s.
Select a color in Design Palette. The My Threads docker automatically locates the nearest matching thread in the selected thread chart. Double-click to transfer to the Design Palette.
If you know the exact code or name of the thread you are looking for, key it into the Find Code field. Optionally, sort the thread list by clicking the ‘Code’ column header. To view complete thread details, click the Show Thread Details button.
Once you have located the desired thread, double-click to transfer to the Design Palette. The selected color becomes the ‘Current Color’. Alternatively, click the Match All button in the My Threads docker. All threads in the current Design Palette will be substituted automatically by the nearest matching thread colors in the current thread chart.
Finally, to consolidate the Design Palette, use the Hide Unused or Remove Unused buttons as preferred. Hide Unused can be toggled on or off if you want to be able to access unused colors at a later stage. Used colors are tagged with blue dots, as shown.
Change color schemes
The Cycle Used Colors and Color Wheel tools allow you to change entire color schemes. Their main purpose is to create a new ‘colorway’ quickly and easily in order to ‘spice up’ old designs or stitch them out on a different color fabric.
Use the Cycle Used Colors tool to try out different combinations of design colors.
Alternatively, use the Color Wheel. This allows you to cycle through many color combinations using preset color schemes: Analogous, Complementary, Harmonious, Monochromatic and Triad.
Click and drag the larger ‘base color’ node to try out different combinations within the same colorway. The base color nominally relates to the color of the target fabric and/or the dominant color scheme of the design.
Click and drag individual color nodes to fine-tune. Use the Brightness control to further adjust selected colors.
To adjust the brightness of the entire design, select the base color node and adjust the Brightness control. If you have sufficient colors already defined in the Design Palette, they will be automatically matched. Alternatively, use the Match All function in the My Threads dialog.
As you can see, picking, editing or changing colors in Hatch Embroidery is easy and fun. Try and experiment with the above tools and you will be amazed by the wonderfully colorful embroidery you can achieve!
Happy Embroidery!
Bernadett and the Hatch Team
Hatch Embroidery software products are in popular use in over 100 countries. It is time to join the global trend and give Hatch a try! The 30-day Free Trial grants you unlimited use of all the amazing features and the 30-day Money Back Guarantee ensures that there is absolutely no risk involved.
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