How to Use Color Mask in Sfumato Stitch

Sfumato Stitch is a digitizing tool that creates embroidery designs from photos. It is based on digitizing the vector boundaries of individual objects, which are then filled with stitches according to the underlying photo.

This page provides a tutorial on using the Color Mask feature in the Sfumato Stitch tool within Embird Studio NEXT software for computerized machine embroidery. It explains how to digitize photos with numerous colors by creating layers and applying color masks to stitch individual color ranges. The tutorial also demonstrates how to utilize color masks to eliminate backgrounds from images, enabling the creation of single-color embroidery designs.

Digitizing all individual objects works for some photos (like portraits, for example), but it is not suitable for photos with many small objects. The color mask feature is intended for situations where there are too many different color areas in the photo, making it difficult to draw them all separately.

In such cases, create one large object that includes all color areas and then use a color mask. A mask allows you to select a color range within the object and to stitch only that part of the object. To generate stitches for other colors within the object, stack copies of the same object one upon the other as layers and select different masks (i.e., color ranges) in each layer to cover the entire object with stitches. This approach allows you to avoid drawing many small objects.

This photo, which we are going to digitize, has a number of different color areas. These areas have complex shapes that are hard to digitize individually.

1. Digitize the Edge of the Sfumato Object

Sfumato tool

Use the Sfumato Tool to draw the area you want to fill with stitches. As we are going to use masks, it is sufficient to draw one large rectangle.

Simple Sfumato object of rectangular shape created with just a few nodes.

2. Parameters - Set Masks

Adjustable parameters of sfumato objects are described in the Parameters-Sfumato chapter.

If you have already finished node editing mode after creating the Sfumato object, switch back to the node editing mode. In this mode, you will see the object's parameters (in the Main Control Panel) and the object itself in the Work Area. This is useful when working with Sfumato objects because it allows you to use the Sfumato preview directly in the Work Area.

Mask controls are located on a tab with the above icon.

There is a green background and orange and yellow flowers in the photo; therefore, we will need 3 masks. Set Mask Count to 3. Use the eyedropper tool to pick the orange color from the photo as Mask Color 1. Then, pick the yellow color from the photo as Mask Color 2 and the green color as Mask Color 3. The order of colors is up to your decision. Because of thread and fabric physics, it is better to sew from the center of the design outwards towards its edges, but the layout of colors in this picture does not allow for it.

Three masks are set. Mask no. 1 is activated.

Mask parameters are:

When picking mask colors from the photo, respective thread shades are generated automatically for each mask. You can override these automatic shades with your own colors if you wish.

Note: The darkest shade, i.e., shade no. 1 - black, is available only for the first mask. Other masks share this shade.

Adjust the balance between all three masks using the Range value controls that are next to the color boxes. Utilize the Shade Preview to see the effect of range changes.

Click on the first (orange) mask switch to activate mask no. 1, because we will generate the orange stitches first.

Shade Preview showing how all three color ranges (orange, yellow, green) are balanced. Orange parts are displayed with 5 shades of orange because the mask of the orange parts is currently focused. Yellow and green parts are displayed as a flat single color because their masks are not focused now. Only one mask can be active in the Sfumato object; the rest of the masks will be active on other layers.

3. Parameters - Adjust Other Settings

It is not necessary to use all available shades for each color range. If a color area is small or its colors are uniform, you may switch off some shades to decrease the number of required thread colors.

Also, decrease the Fidelity value to reduce the stitch count. Fidelity affects the design's stitch count. A flower design like this example can look great even with lower fidelity, and it will sew faster and better because of the lower stitch count and fewer short stitches.

Another parameter applicable here is the Style. Different styles produce lighter or heavier stitch coverage in the bright areas, which means that the fabric is visible more or less than with other styles. In this example, style no. 3 is used for the orange and yellow flowers to give them a richer color due to the higher stitch density in bright areas.

4. Create Layers

Click the Generate Stitches button or use this command from the pop-up menu. Of course, only the orange part of the object will be filled with stitches.

The first layer contains only the orange color range.

Select the object, then Copy and Paste it to create a duplicate object that lies directly on top of the first object. Notice that there are three identical objects in the Object Inspector window.

5. Activate Layers

Select the second object from the Object Inspector list and invoke the pop-up menu. Select the Edit command to switch to node editing mode and access the parameters panel. In the parameters panel, activate mask no. 2 (yellow). Then, generate stitches for this object.

Mask no. 2 is activated.

The second layer contains only the yellow color range.

Select the third object from the Object Inspector list and invoke the pop-up menu. Select the Edit command to switch to node editing mode and access the parameters panel. In the parameters panel, activate mask no. 3 (green). Then, generate stitches for this object.

Mask no. 3 is activated.

The third layer contains only the green color range.

Each layer now has its properly assigned mask and, consequently, also its color.

Three masked Sfumato objects as stacked layers with different colors.

Sfumato objects as icons in the Object Inspector.

6. Save Design

Generate stitches for all three objects. The design is now finished and you can save the design into a Studio *.EOF file. Use the main menu > Design > Compile and Put into Embird Editor command to place the design into the Editor for saving in the desired embroidery format. If you are not a registered user of Sfumato Stitch, this command is disabled.

7. Another Example of Using Sfumato with a Mask

Let's digitize the image below using Sfumato Stitch .

The mask feature allows us to achieve two goals:

1. Avoid the tedious digitizing of each individual object by making just one common Sfumato object.
2. Eliminate the background if we want to.

Original image with a white background

The image contains fine lines in black and gray shades; the background is white. We want this design to be stitched in a single color (black).

Import the image into Studio. Adjust its size to fit the hoop or resize it to the proper dimensions. Then, create a Sfumato object with the Sfumato tool. In the example shown below, the Sfumato object is a simple rectangular shape. It also includes the background area. Select a basic color for the object (black). If we use the default parameter settings, the generated stitches will cover the whole area of the Sfumato object (including the background), and there will be 5 shades of gray used in this object.

Design with stitches in 5 gray tones and with the background filled with stitches

We need to eliminate the background using the Color Mask. However, the program cannot distinguish white color from the scale of gray tones used in the image. The Color Mask in Sfumato is based on the chromatic component of the color. The brightness component is ignored. Therefore, black and white are regarded as just different shades of gray and cannot be separated using the Color Mask.

We will use the image Background Filters to change white to some other color, thus allowing the Color Mask to separate black details from the colored background.

The Yellow-Blue balance of the highlight areas (white areas, in this case) in the Background Filters panel was adjusted so that the background is now yellow.

Note: When balancing the hue in the Background Filters, do not mistake tabs for shadows, midtones and highlights. Using wrong tab results in not achieving required effect.

Image with the yellow-blue balance moved towards the yellow tones

Now we can easily separate the black detail from the yellow background using the Color Mask. Set the number of masks to 2. Pick black for mask 1 and yellow for mask 2. Adjust the mask ranges to achieve the best foreground/background balance. Then, select the first mask (black). As we want only a single-color design, disable the brighter shades and use only the darkest shade for stitching.

Two masks are set. Mask no. 1 is activated.

Generate stitches. The finished design has only one color, and the background is eliminated.

Finished single-color design.