JPG to PES

What to know about starting from JPG

JPEG throws away detail to save space, and it does it worst exactly where embroidery cares most: hard edges. Zoom into a JPEG logo and the boundary between two flat colours is a fringe of in-between pixels.

How to convert JPG to PES

1. Upload your JPG. Those fringe pixels read as extra colours, so cut the colour count down hard — a two-colour logo should convert as two colours, not eleven. If you can get the original PNG, SVG or PDF from whoever made the logo, use that instead; it is the single biggest quality difference available to you.
2. Set the finished size. Work in millimetres and set it before you judge anything else — every decision about detail depends on how big the design will be. Detail that survives at 150mm disappears at 60mm.
3. Reduce the colours. Each colour is a thread change on the machine. Pick the fewest that still read as your artwork.
4. Check the preview, then export as PES. The stitch preview plays the design in the order the machine will sew it, so you can catch problems before there is thread in the hoop.

About the PES format

PES is the native format for Brother and Baby Lock. PES stores your thread colours, so the machine shows the design in colour and prompts for each one by name. It also encodes most jumps as a cut, so expect a few more trims on the back than the same design in DST.

What makes the difference to the result

Digitizing is not tracing. The converter decides how each region gets filled, which direction the stitches run, where the underlay goes and how much to compensate for the fabric pulling the design in as it sews. Those decisions are what separate a design that stitches cleanly from one that puckers, gaps at the edges or takes twice as long as it should.

• Size before everything. A shape narrower than about 1.2mm cannot be stitched as its own satin column; it has to be widened or dropped.
• Fewer colours, better result. Every extra colour is a thread change, a trim and a chance for registration to drift.
• Flat beats subtle. Gradients, glows and soft shadows have no equivalent in thread and become banding.
• Check the stitch order. The simulator plays it back so you can see the sequence before you sew it.

Already have the vector?

If whoever designed the artwork can send you the SVG, AI, EPS or PDF, use that instead. Converting from vector skips the whole business of inferring edges from pixels, and the difference is visible in the finished stitch-out. See SVG to embroidery.

Related converters

Already have an embroidery file in the wrong format? That is a different job — no digitizing needed, just a re-encode. Use the embroidery file converter. Working with text rather than artwork? Browse the embroidery fonts.