Thread color vs the color of the fabric

Original text by: Marina Belova 

I think that every machine embroidery digitizer has experienced a necessity of changing the design not only because of different size or a different type of fabric, but also to embroider the same design in a different color scheme. 

Here is an illustrative example. I embroidered the same design on the same type of fabric, but with different colors. The colors of both the fabric and the threads varied. And every time the color of the thread contrasted the color of the embroidery base. 

This is a branch embroidered with dark threads on the blue knitwear pique: 

Here all fills and densities are in perfect order. And this is the same branch, but embroidered with light-colored threads on the dark brown pique: 

As you can judge from the photo, the dark background shows from under the light-colored threads, and to my eye the branch looks thinner and less neat, like it sinks into the fabric. You also get the impression that the lighter threads are thinner than the dark ones. 

On the photo below is the branch embroidered with the thread that does not contrast the dark fabric. Nothing is offending to the eye here: 

I also show you the photo of the embroidery made with threads of several different colors, but with the same outline parameters. When you look at it, you instantly see that something is wrong with the white thread — the dark background shows through and tempts you to make corrections. 

It seems that the light-colored thread requires more attention from the digitizer. That is, higher compensation value and higher stitch density.

But if you asked me, I would not increase the density of the finishing stitches so that to avoid extra problems. I would increase the density of the understitching instead. 

And don't forget about the greater attention to the light-colored thread in the design. I've encountered situations when I had to digitize the same image twice, in two color schemes, i.e. I got two different files as the result. One for the light-colored threads and another, a simpler one, for dark colors. 

As you see, you cannot just take machine embroidery files and simply change everything in them, from the type of thread to the type of fabric, and achieve the result of the same quality. There is no such option. You'll always need to make small corrections. 

There are no trifling matters in machine embroidery. Though our understanding of the quality may vary.