EQ6 - Scanning Fabrics Intro

I would like to get some preliminary information out of the way before I post the full tutorial.  The tools you will need for preparing fabric swatches for EQ6 are: a PC or laptop, a scanner, fabric and photo editing/processing software.  The first three items are obvious and it's the last item I want to talk about here.

Today, digital cameras come with photo editing software and it is quite likely this software will work for preparing fabric images since EQ6 supports .jpeg files (with EQ5 you had to save your swatch as a bitmap).  However, to fully take advantage of the many new features in EQ6 a good photo editing/processing program is a plus and you'll see why in the upcoming tutorial.


What software to use? Mary Ellen Kranz, author of Blending Photos with Fabrics 2, uses Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 (the 'X' is the Roman numeral for '10' since this is version 12).  Gloria Hansen, author of Digital Essentials, uses Adobe Photoshop (pricey but Gloria is also a website designer); however, in her book she also gives instructions for Adobe Photoshop Elements.  Both Corel and Adobe have been putting their products on sell throughout summer and into the fall so you might want to apply for email notices and jump when you see the price you like. In the meantime, you can download 30-day trial versions of either program.  Both come with learning videos/centres, and you can also visit Lynda.com and view the first few lessons on either program for free (click the drop down area in the 'Software' search box and look for Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro).

There is a third photo processing program I will mention and it is completely free.  It is the open source program called The Gimp. You might like to visit the site and have a look around and decide if you want to give it a try.  As for myself, I use Paint Shop Pro; however, I will not recommend any one product since I have not tried Adobe's or The Gimp.  Each program will have pluses and minuses depending on who you talk to and it really comes down to personal preferences.

Finally, I want to mention that in my tutorials I will not be offering any technical information that explains things like .jpegs, .gifs, .pngs, etc., since that would be far too time consuming.  Besides, you can get that information through Google or any other search engine.