Design Software

First, since I'm talking about software and don't have a picture of it to post, I thought I'd share a pic of Terry's latest painting. This is 'Archie' and I love it. He did it in acrylics and it is about 18"x12".

Now to design software. As I've mentioned many times in the past I've been using the Jane Greenoff software that I purchased through Needleprint and it really has been terrific for a beginner designer, because it is very intuitive and easy to use. However I am going to be submitting my designs to a publisher who wants to carry them - so you'll be able to request them in your local needle shop soon :) - and the Greenoff just doesn't export the quality of charts and image of the design at a level for publishing.

So I've spent several days researching other design software and I'm giving the PCStitch Pro 9 program a try. So far I'm pretty happy with it, as always there are some new things to get used to in a new program, and while I wish it had a few minor things the Greenoff had, overall it is also pretty easy to use and it does have better printing/exporting abilities.

When you go from one of these programs to another they lack the ability to import your files from another design software, so I'm going to have to spend a bit of time 'redrawing' the designs into the new program. But happily, I found yesterday that isn't going to be as difficult as I thought it might be.

Next I have to put the charts into the format I want for the leaflets so I'm also learning Microsoft Publisher 2010. I hope these efforts are going to produce the quality leaflets I want to present. All this is MUCH harder than designing, ack! I'll be very happy to have gotten through this transition and get back to having some time for new designs.