Tracing Images into Embroidery Designs
Prepare an honest image to DST or JPG/PNG to DST workflow with editable traced objects.
Choose suitable artwork
Image Trace converts bitmap color regions into embroidery objects. Clean logos, simple flat illustrations, transparent PNG files, and high-contrast images are the best starting points. Photos, gradients, compression noise, textured backgrounds, and tiny detail require more cleanup.
Set size, detail, and background
- Choose Import Image and open JPG, JPEG, PNG, or WebP artwork.
- Set Design size (mm) to the intended physical width. This dialog uses millimeters. Under Advanced, Keep aspect ratio preserves proportions; turn it off to enter an independent Height.
- Choose Simple, Balanced, or Detailed. Start with Balanced; Simple reduces small detail, while Detailed attempts to retain more features.
- Choose Background → Remove or Keep. Background removal preserves interior white details; inspect openings and edge-connected white areas in the preview.
- Review the embroidery preview and warnings before choosing Import. The result is grouped, editable embroidery objects.
Advanced cleanup and sewing order
Automatic colors chooses the palette; turn it off to set Number of colors. Use Minimum region size (pixels), Smooth edges, and Simplify paths to balance detail and complexity. In Colors, clear unwanted colors and use the arrows to move them earlier or later: top-to-bottom is sewing order. Show stitch paths changes the preview from thread appearance to technical needle paths.
Automatic stitch planning and detail recovery
The converter prepares one embroidery preview using automatic stitch planning. It can choose reliable running centerlines, narrow satin bands, and shape-based fill directions. It can also refine weak small contours when measured coverage improves; when used, the preview reports how many small regions received refined boundaries. This cannot recreate details already removed by color selection or cleanup, and unsuitable regions can retain ordinary Fill.
Review embroidery suggestions
Under Advanced → Review embroidery suggestions, choose Fill, Satin, Run, Triple Run, or Skip for each region where available. The availability summary explains how many regions support Run or Satin; broad, holed, branched, or irregular regions may offer only Fill and Skip. For Fill, adjust Fill angle (degrees). Reset to automatic restores the generated techniques and angles; Use ordinary Fill provides a fill-only starting point. At least one region must remain stitchable to import.
After import, inspect the group and Ready warnings. Imported local stitch settings remain editable and are preserved in .embproj. Changing the source image, size, or tracing configuration can require a fresh review.
An “image to DST” workflow always has an editable preparation step: the bitmap is traced first, then the current calculated stitches are exported. More colors and regions generally mean more objects, color stops, travel, and processing work.
Related: Cleanup Tools, Ready Checks, and Exporting.