TruEmbroidery™ 3 Software Newsletter March 2015

Welcome to the TruEmbroidery™ 3 newsletter. See how to use the Color Tone tool in this month's edition. Also learn how to create your own fonts for use on the Letter page or for your embroidery machine.

Icons

Color Tone is a great way to play with the threads in your design. The feature is new to the TruE™ 3 Studio Application, and is available both in TruEmbroidery™ 3 ELEMENTS and TruEmbroidery™ 3 ELITE. This tool can be found on the Design window of the Control Panel. Let's see how it works.

The Color Tone page includes the Brightness, Contrast and Gamma sliders, and the Thread Range box. Try different settings to enhance different designs - you can also combine more than one Color Tone tool. In the Thread Range box, convert all the threads in an embroidery to a new thread range, with or without adjusting the Color Tone options

Select the embroidery, then in the Design window click Color Tone . (You can also find the Color Tone tool on the Design menu.)

• The Brightness effect makes the selected part or all of an embroidery lighter or darker than the original. Use it to lighten or darken embroideries. Drag the Brightness slider from -10 to +10. The default setting is 0.
• The Contrast effect changes the amount of shading between areas for the embroidery. Use it to make specific areas stand out. Adjust Contrast up to +10 or -10 more or less than the original. Increasing the setting will increase the darkness of dark areas and the lightness of light areas. Drag the Contrast slider from -10 to +10. The default setting is 0.
• Use Gamma to adjust the brightness and contrast together so that dark areas are made brighter, but bright areas are not overexposed. Lower values make the embroidery appear lighter. Drag the Gamma slider from 2 to 40. The default setting is 10.
• Use the Thread Range box to select the thread range used for the embroidery from the pop-up menu. Choose from any of the manufacturer's thread ranges or one of the MyThreads ranges you create using TruE™ 3 Thread Cache. If the embroidery originally used more than one thread range, only one thread range will now be used. To return to the original thread range(s) used in the design select 'Original Threads' from the top of the list.
• Reset will set the embroidery back to the original settings.

One really helpful feature in Color Tone is the ability to convert all the threads to a different thread range all at once! The baseball player that is found in the Studio/Stitch2/Leisure subfolder in the TruEmbroidery™ 3 samples folder uses the Sulky thread brand. In the Color Tone Window, change all the threads to your favorite thread brand or your MyThreads all at once, as pictured at the start of the section.

Tips and Techniques

Also new to TruE™ 3 Studio in TruEmbroidery™ 3 ELEMENTS and TruEmbroidery™ 3 ELITE is the QuickFont Assistant, to create fonts automatically for use with your TruEmbroidery™ 3 Software, or your embroidery machine. The assistant is also available as a complimentary download for embroidery machine owners.

Use the QuickFont Assistant to create fonts automatically for use with your TruEmbroidery™ 3 Software, or your embroidery machine. Create a font automatically from a TrueType® or OpenType® font on your computer for use with your TruEmbroidery™ 3 Software, or certain HUSQVARNA VIKING® or PFAFF® embroidery machines.

There are three ways to start the QuickFont Assistant to create a font: in the Letter window , click QuickFont Assistant ; in the Launchpad, click the QuickFont Assistant icon in the Launchpad; or double-click the QuickFont Assistant icon in the Finder.

Select a Font from those found on your computer. Select Light or Bold, then click next. Here we are using Noteworthy Light, a font available in the Mac® Fonts folder. You can choose from Satin, Pattern Fill, Pattern Fill + Satin Border, Satin Border, Appliqué and Outline for the Stitch Type. Change the Stitch Options to include Density, underlay, and compensation. Set the size range. When you click Done, the new Font will be saved in the MyFonts folder or wherever you specify.

You can now use that new Font just as you would any of the built-in or system Fonts.

To create a font for use on your embroidery machine, simply select File Type "For using on my embroidery machine", select your brand of machine; then create as above. Save to a USB stick to use on your embroidery machine.

Best wishes from TruEmbroidery™ 3 Software

P.S. Watch for the TruEmbroidery™ newsletter next month when we will look at the Life View feature in Studio and Motif Fill in Create.