PREMIER+™ Software Newsletter - July 2017

Module Mystique

Module Mystique

The PREMIER+™ Modify module is designed for more sophisticated editing of finalized embroidery designs in most commonly available formats. The Modify module has a number of useful features that help you select, edit, and change all or part of one or many existing designs.

PREMIER+™ Modify is designed with a Quick Access Toolbar at the very top, with a Ribbon Bar underneath containing multiple tabs. Each tab has a grouping of tools designed for a specific purpose, such as working with Files, changing settings for the work area View, or accessing the built in Help system.

The Home tab has commonly used tools, including a Design Select field where you can choose which design is active when multiple designs have been inserted in Layers.

The Control Strip is visible from every tab in the Ribbon Bar at the bottom of the page, just above the QuickLink Toolbar and Zoom Toolbar.

The Help system in Modify has a lot of good information on the features of the Control Strip and its individual functions, plus some tutorials to help you learn to manipulate the tools.

The Draw Stitches bar has a Start slider, an End slider, and bands of color that represent each thread color change in the active design.

• When you drag the Start slider, stitches hide from the beginning of the design to the location of the slider.
• Drag the End slider to isolate stitches from the end of the design to the slider. Use these two sliders to help isolate stitches that might otherwise be difficult to select, such as underlay or traveling stitches that sit under fill or satin stitches in your embroidery.

Adjust the numbers of start and end stitches to fine tune the visible stitch selection by clicking the arrows to show or hide one stitch at a time, when you need to isolate a specific stitch for functions such as inserting a Color Change or Stop command .

The Player toolbar lets you ‘play’ through live stitches in the work area exactly as they exist in the work in progress, so you can better visualize how the stitches are layered, and the direction in which they stitch. The Control Strip Player is different from the Design Player in PREMIER+™ Modify, which shows how the design will stitch after it has been Exported, using your current Export settings in PREMIER+™ Configure, to finalize for your embroidery machine.

You can quickly filter sections of the active embroidery by color, by inverting the currently visible stitches for the hidden ones, by Stop commands, and more.

The tools in the Control Strip are a tremendous help in isolating sections of embroidery designs so you can make those design changes fast and easy!

Another function found in the Design tab of PREMIER+™ Modify is called Design Select. When designs are Inserted in PREMIER+™ Modify, they stay separated in discrete layers so you can easily make changes to the individual designs but still view how the finished product will look when Exported for stitching.

• Click the embroidery layer you want to edit in the Design Select window so it is highlighted and it will become the active design in the work area. Inactive designs are visible but faded in the work area to indicate their stitches are not editable.
• Use the Previous Design and Next Design icons to step through multiple embroideries, or change the stitch order with Move Backwards (toward the beginning of the design) and Move Forwards (toward the end of the design).
• Combine with Previous will merge the currently selected design with the one that stitches just before it. Remember, however, combining or merging in the Modify module will not automatically remove overlapping layers.

Tip: To remove overlap before you stitch, keep each design in its discrete Layer until you are done editing, the use Export to finalize the design for stitching, as you can opt to remove overlap when exporting. To preview how the design will export as your work is in progress, click Life View . Life View shows a live preview of your entire work area, filtered to show how the design will appear after Export. Or select the Design Player to play through stitches as they appear after Export.

The designs pictured in the illustration above are Flower Garden and Butterfly and Sunflower from Documents\ Premier+\ Samples\ Premier+Emb\ Stitch2\ Butterflies and Bugs.

Tips and Techniques

Tips and Techniques

Let's step through how to use some of the Control Strip and Design Select functions so you can better utilize them when editing your collections of embroidery designs!

1. Select Insert from the Quick Access toolbar, and browse to Documents\ Premier+\ Samples\ Premier+Emb\ Stitch2\ Butterflies and Bugs.
2. Select Butterfly and Sunflower, hold down the keyboard CTRL key and select Flower Garden, so both are selected, and then click Open.


3. In the Design tab, Design Select box, if Flower Garden is the second design, select it and click Move Backwards so it will stitch first, and the Butterflies and Bugs design will stitch second so it’s layered over the top.


4. With the Flower Garden design selected as the active design, click Select All Visible to box select the active design.


5. Select Resize in the Home tab, and adjust by holding CTRL and Shift on the keyboard while you drag a corner handle to enlarge the design as desired, so it’s more in scale with the Butterfly and Sunflower design.
6. Click and drag the selected design to position it as desired.
7. Use Next Design in Design Select to move to the Butterfly and Sunflower, select with one of the Selecting tools if necessary, and adjust its position so it just overlaps the other design a bit, giving it more perspective.


8. If Ghost Mode is not selected, click to activate Ghost Mode so hidden stitches in the active design will be faintly visible for reference.


9. Use Draw Next Color Block to isolate the first thread color in the active design, Butterfly and Sunflower. Click Draw Next Color Block again to see the stitches used to add shading to the leaf.


10. Click Select All Visible to reselect just the highlighting stitches, and then Delete to remove the stitches.


11. Click Invert Visible Color Blocks to make the hidden stitches in the active design the visible selection.


12. Click Draw All Stitches to ensure all the stitches are showing in the active design.


13. Use Life View to preview how the embroidery will appear upon Export.
14. Use Design Player to play through the stitches as though they have been exported.