<p>It isn't the machine selection that matters so much as the software available for a particular machine and the ability of that software to digitize a photographic image into the the correct form.</p>

<p>My sister has a couple machines with which I've assisted in the software on multiple instances. One in particular was the conversion of a photograph of a fluffy dog to an embroidery file.</p>

<p>The software supplied with the machine varied depending on the price paid. She purchased a more-deluxe version and it had the image digitizing feature. </p>

<p>Be advised that photographs are quite complex and can result in thousands of stitches of various colors. For a single needle machine it will also result in that many changes of colors of threads. Obviously, the number of thread changes will be reduced by a factor directly associated by the needle count.</p>

<p>Resolution is going to impact your job size as well. The lower resolution image will "print" faster, with fewer color changes.</p>

<p>The aforementioned fluffy dog was reduced to black and white and became somewhat blocky, but was still recognizable as the dog of the person receiving the gift.</p>

<p>The price differences for one machine to the next will have to do with the capacity of the computer controlled hoop, the overall speed, the additional features (wifi, display size, etc) and the number of needles.</p>

<p>Our area (USA) has many sales representatives within retail shops who are frequently happy to sell machines and talk them up a good bit. You will also find it valuable to frequent the forums specific to a machine you are considering and view the problems, questions and solutions others have posted.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-19T23:51:52.963Z
2017-04-19T23:51:52.963Z
fred_dot_u
<p>I'm looking at buying an embroidery machine (or more specifically my partner is). We only have one real hard requirement:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The machine must be capable to accepting a pattern from our computer that we can make out of a photograph/image.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I'm sure we'll need some software to convert the images, but otherwise how should we pick a machine. What are good figures of merit for a sewing and embroidery machine (And why do the prices vary so vastly from around  £300 to £10,000)?</p>

<p>For example when choosing a processor for a computer a good figure of merit for scientific computing is the number of threads multiplied by the clock speed. It doesn't have to be any fancy combination of specification, but I can't really tell the difference between the low end and the high end so I'm missing something!</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-19T19:18:14.220Z
One difference could be the size of the emroider-able area (how big the hoop is). I don't know enough about embroidery machines to know if that's *the* difference, though!
user812786
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-04-19T20:01:26.463Z
@whrrgarbl I'm guessing that some machines may also manage more than one color of thread at a time, some may be faster than others, have a wider array of stitch types, a broader pre-installed collection of techniques/fonts/patterns, amount of memory, size of the screen... etc.
Catija
<sewing><sewing-machine><embroidery>
How to pick an embroidery machine
user6916458
# How to pick an embroidery machine

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-04-19)

I'm looking at buying an embroidery machine (or more specifically my partner is). We only have one real hard requirement:

> The machine must be capable to accepting a pattern from our computer that we can make out of a photograph/image.

I'm sure we'll need some software to convert the images, but otherwise how should we pick a machine. What are good figures of merit for a sewing and embroidery machine (And why do the prices vary so vastly from around £300 to £10,000)?

For example when choosing a processor for a computer a good figure of merit for scientific computing is the number of threads multiplied by the clock speed. It doesn't have to be any fancy combination of specification, but I can't really tell the difference between the low end and the high end so I'm missing something!

**Tags:** sewing, sewing-machine, embroidery

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: One difference could be the size of the emroider-able area (how big the hoop is). I don't know enough about embroidery machines to know if that's *the* difference, though!  
> **username_2**: @whrrgarbl I'm guessing that some machines may also manage more than one color of thread at a time, some may be faster than others, have a wider array of stitch types, a broader pre-installed collection of techniques/fonts/patterns, amount of memory, size of the screen... etc.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2017-04-19. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

It isn't the machine selection that matters so much as the software available for a particular machine and the ability of that software to digitize a photographic image into the the correct form.

My sister has a couple machines with which I've assisted in the software on multiple instances. One in particular was the conversion of a photograph of a fluffy dog to an embroidery file.

The software supplied with the machine varied depending on the price paid. She purchased a more-deluxe version and it had the image digitizing feature.

Be advised that photographs are quite complex and can result in thousands of stitches of various colors. For a single needle machine it will also result in that many changes of colors of threads. Obviously, the number of thread changes will be reduced by a factor directly associated by the needle count.

Resolution is going to impact your job size as well. The lower resolution image will "print" faster, with fewer color changes.

The aforementioned fluffy dog was reduced to black and white and became somewhat blocky, but was still recognizable as the dog of the person receiving the gift.

The price differences for one machine to the next will have to do with the capacity of the computer controlled hoop, the overall speed, the additional features (wifi, display size, etc) and the number of needles.

Our area (USA) has many sales representatives within retail shops who are frequently happy to sell machines and talk them up a good bit. You will also find it valuable to frequent the forums specific to a machine you are considering and view the problems, questions and solutions others have posted.


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