| User Friendly: Let's begin with the Viking, BBD and Artista software, since those are the programs you're most likely to use for creating designs and for most of your customizing. All three will create good designs. Probably the Artista is the easiest for the beginner to use, with the BBD coming a close second. The Viking software has a "learning curve" which makes it take a bit more effort to learn, but once learned it offers unlimited opportunities for you to create, customize and edit designs. |
| Digitizing: As for digitizing, the Viking software offers 50 fill stitches (more in the upgrade, which I don't have yet). In addition to the 50 fill stitches, it also offers, in Stitch Editor Pro, the opportunity to remove fill from inside the outline of an object and to "stamp" a new fill over the resulting satin stitches. The BBD software offers many fewer fill stitches but offers the opportunity for you to create you own, a feature the Viking lacks. The Artista offers only 12 fill stitches. My feeling when I was using the Artista software was that all 12 fill stitches looked exactly the same. In defense of the software, I was using it at a period prior to the time when I became aware of how very much a change in stitch direction affects how fill stitches look. It is likely that with proper stitch direction I would have found that there was more variety in the fill stitches than I had originally thought. So your choice of fill stitches with both the Viking and BBD software is almost unlimited, while the Artista has a limited number of fill stitches. |
| Multiple Fill Stitches: Having said all of that, I'd like to make the point that while multiple fill stitches are fun and add interest to some designs, they are not an absolute necessity. If you take a truly good design done in a commercial digitizing program and watch while it stitches, you'll discover that all of that wonderful texture and shading are achieved with simple satin and fill stitches! Download the American Eagle from Embroidery Library and stitch it out. Starbird has digitized that wonderful eagle without using any fancy fill stitches. |
| Conversion: As far as conversion is concerned, each program above offers a limited amount. The Viking Pro system includes Conversion Pro. The Artista can both open and save in many (but not all) of the home formats. The BBD software can import many of the home formats but will save only in .pes format. There are other conversion programs available, notably SmartSizer and BuzzTools, which can convert just about any home format, as well as commercial formats such as .exp and .dst. |
| SmartSizer Gold: A note about SmartSizer Gold. It is possible, if you have SmartSizer, to purchase SmartSizer Gold as an upgrade at a relatively low cost. One of the advantages of SSGold over SS is that it works in tandem with SizeExpress, so that you can resize and maintain density within SS itself without having to open another program. However, it is not necessary to have it in order to use SizeExpress, which is a stand-alone program. Seems to me that the major advantage of SS Gold is for those who will be purchasing the new Viking machine or who have a machine such as the Singer Quantum XL000 with a very large hoop. SmartSizer is limited to the sizes available on current home embroidery machines (although this may be corrected through an upgrade later). In other words, the largest hoop you can show on screen is the large hoop of the Esante Ese or the Brother 8200. SS Gold offers an additional custom hoop size. You can simply type in the dimensions of your embroidery field (the actual size you can stitch as opposed to the larger dimension of the hoop itself). This enables you to set your hoop on the screen to the size of the new Viking hoop (embroidery field 150 X 240 mm) or the Singer hoop (embroidery field 120 X 240 mm). |
| Customizing: All three programs (Viking Embroidery Pro, BBD, and Artista) are similar as far as their use for customizing is concerned, except that the Artista and the BBD programs do offer the opportunity to resize designs and maintain density, a feature which the Viking software lacks. In the Artista this is done through simple resizing. With the BBD programs it is done using a command called "stitch to block." It is possible to purchase a program from Great Notions called SizeExpress which will resize home-format designs and maintain density, so Viking users can get this utility by purchasing this program. |
| Lettering: As far as lettering is concerned, there are tremendous differences between the results produced by the above three programs. The Artista does elastic lettering very easily, using simple drag with the mouse to pull/push to achieve the shapes you want. The final product is not as good, however, as that achieved using the BBD software. The BBD programs don't offer as many choices in manipulated shapes, but the actual letters produced are superior to those of the Artista. I'm afraid that lettering is the one area where the Viking software truly fails. I've yet to produce any lettering using that software which I have considered satisfactory (but I must admit that I'm probably too picky!). |
| Resizing:While on the subject of resizing, I'd like to make some comments. It seems to be the general impression of many people that having a facility such as Stitch to Block or having either SizeExpress or the Artista software means you can resize any design without limitations and have a successful result. This is not the case! Some designs will resize more successfully than others. Think about it. If you are starting with a very small design it will, of necessity, have very little detail in it simply because there isn't ROOM for a lot of detail. If you blow up that design to a very large size it will resize successfully but will be extremely dull and boring and flat looking. That's because you really NEED detail in a large design. On the other hand, take a good look at a very large design (such as the jacket backs found at the Embroidery Library site). They are full of detail, multiple color changes, etc. If you take a design such as one of these and reduce it to a teeny design, where do you expect all of that detail to go? Your computer will have a "nervous breakdown" and it is more than likely that chunks of your design will be omitted simply because there's no place for them to go. So you might end up with some of your detail and be missing other portions. The design will not convert properly to an extremely small size. My point is that it is necessary, no matter what resizing program you're using, for you to use your common sense in determining which designs will resize successfully and how much they can be resized. Resizing is NOT for all designs! |
| Simon, Jr.: As an addition to the information about resizing above, I guess I should make mention of the new resizing program by OESD called Simon, Jr. I have it because I purchased one of their cd's of designs and the program came on the cd. I do not recommend going that route because, to me, all it does is make you have to deal with yet another design format. It will NOT resize .cnd and it will NOT resize .gnc (the format which SmartSizer will resize). It requires designs in a format all of its own, available only from OESD. I see this, frankly, as a way of creating a monopoly ; if you use this program you are ruled out from resizing any other format and must purchase all of your designs from OESD. |
| SizeExpress: And that's the advantage of the new SizeExpress from Great Notions. It will resize ANY home format (which are expanded designs!). However, it is important to note that it will not resize .cnd OR any commercial format such as .dst. But it seems to me that it is the most useful of any of the resizing programs for basic usage by the home sewer since we will almost always be converting commercial formats to our home formats anyhow and can then resize them. |
| Description: While called Bernina Customizer Deluxe, it is an OESD program. The DecoWizard and Artista, the other Bernina programs, are machine-specific, where this one is not. It doesn't even recognize .pes format, the format used by DecoWizard, except as a format to convert to! |
| Features: In addition, this is truly a customizing program and offers the ability to combine designs, etc., just as any other customizer does. As far as using it along with .hus files is concerned, you can do that two different ways. You can create your lettering, convert it to .hus and then open Viking customizing to combine your lettering with your design(s). Or you can convert your .hus design to .exp and bring it into Customizer Deluxe to combine them. Or simply use it either way to combine two designs with no lettering involved at all, if that's what you wish to do. I created a "badge" design for my dog club, a double circle with lettering (name of club) between the two circles and with a dog in the center of the entire design. Because I wanted the dog design to fit exactly within the inner circle, I thought it would be easier to work with it in the Customizer Deluxe. So I converted my .hus design to.exp, created my logo/badge design and then converted the entire thing, as one entity, back to .hus for stitching it out. |
| Hoop Size: BCD lets you type in the measurements for the size hoop wanted. Just as a test, I typed in 150 X 240 (the embroidery field of Designer One) and it accepted it just fine. |
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Conversion: Once a design/lettering is created and/or customized in BCD, you can click on File/Convert instead of File/Save. This will automatically open the mini conversion program which is included with BCD and let you save in the format you wish (.hus, .pes, etc.). The screen in this mini-conversion package looks much like the screen in SmartSizer, so that there is a familiar look to it. BCD can open three types of files: .exp, .cnd and .ofm ,which is an object file. Objects and condensed files are resizable and the density will change. .Exp, which is expanded, is not resizable except for a small amount (the density will not change). Many of the Bernina design floppies have .cnd format on them in addition to the .pes format. I make a point of saving that format whenever I can so that I can resize the designs using BCD. You can not, however, convert designs to .cnd and then resize them; they have to have been created as condensed files from the start. FYI, as a general rule condensed files, in whatever format, are resizable and expanded files are not. Our home formats, such as .hus and .pes, are expanded formats. |
| Price of BCD: As far as price of BCD is concerned, I'm not a good person to ask about that. It is often offered in a package with DecoWizard with a special price for the two together, although it is also available as an individual program. The best route to take on this is to ask a dealer for the price. Just be certain that you ask about the right program! Many dealers, believe it or not, don't know the difference between the various programs with the name "Bernina" on them and will try to convince customers that what they are trying to purchase is either the DecoWizard or the Artista software. Tell them that you know exactly what it is that you want and that it is called Bernina Customizer Deluxe; say that you will not accept any other program! |
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Artista Baby Lock Palette Bernina Customizer Bernina Deco Wizard Brother PE Design Elna |
ART PES EXP PES PES SEW |
Janome Pfaff PC-Designer Singer Quantum XL 1000 Singer EU Viking/Husqvarna |
SEW PCS XXX CSD HUS |
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