Color and Palettes

Embird Embroidery Software Tutorial

Embroidery design colors refer to the thread colors used in an embroidery design to bring it to life on fabric. In the context of embroidery, each color in the design corresponds to a specific thread that will be used by the embroidery machine to stitch the design. Colors are an essential part of the design process, and selecting the right colors can significantly impact the overall look and quality of the embroidered piece.

1 - Run "Embird"; it will start in "Manager" mode.

2 - Use the "Drive", "Folder", and "Files" boxes (located on the right panel at the right side of the screen) and choose the folder with embroidery designs.

3 - Double-click the file name of the design that you want to display. It will appear in the preview area. Below this area, there is a bar that contains boxes with design colors.

4 - Move the mouse pointer to the box containing the color that you want to change and double-click the left mouse button (Picture No. 1).

1. Double-click the color box

5 - You can select the new color in the dialog box that appears on the screen. There are several possibilities for choosing the new color: either from the "Basic color" boxes (at the left side of the screen), in the "Color spectrum" box (in the middle of the screen), or from the "Color bar" (at the right side of the screen). There is also the possibility to type numbers into the "Red, Green, Blue" boxes if you want to choose a color with known R, G, B values.

6 - After choosing your new color, click the "Add to Custom Colors" button. The new color appears in the "Custom colors" box (Picture No. 2). Then click the "OK" button to confirm the selection.

2. Choose new color

7 - The new color will appear in the box, but not in the design. The color changes must be applied - click the "Apply Color Changes" button located below the color boxes (Picture No. 3).

3. Apply Color Changes

8 - Now, you should see the differences between the design with the previous color (Picture No. 1) and the new color (Picture No. 4). The brown color of the squirrel's cob has changed to yellow.

9 - Repeat steps 4 ~ 7 if you want to change another design color or the color of the background.

10 - The color changes are not permanent unless you save the new color palette. If you want to discard the color changes and restore the previous colors, click the "Restore Color Palette" button.

11 - Click the "Save Color Palette" button if you want to save the new color palette (Picture No. 4).

4. Save Color Palette

12 - Specify the folder and the file name of the palette file in the dialog box that appears on the screen (Picture No. 5). It is recommended to save the color palette to the same folder and with the same file name as the corresponding design, just change the extension to .EDR.

Note:  Tajima DST files cannot store the color palette; this palette must be saved into a separate file. So, we added support for a file with the .EDR extension. If you have the SQUIRREL.DST file and save the color palette, it will be stored in the SQUIRREL.EDR file (unless you change its name). The option in the "Options > Settings > Support Palette Files" menu must be ON; otherwise, the .EDR files are not taken into account by Embird. Open "Help > Contents > Color Palette Menu" for more information about the .EDR extension.

5. Choose Palette Filename

13 - After saving, when you double-click on the file name of the design (SQUIRREL.DST), it will be displayed with the new color palette (Picture No. 6).

6. Design with new color

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