Description:
An age-old hobby comes into the electronic age with PC Stitch 6.0. With this user-friendly program, cross-stitchers can design, preview, and revamp cross-stitch patterns, creating never-before-seen images. It's even possible to use a scanned photo--of a loved one, a home, or anything else--to create a unique project.Though much of today's home software incorporates scanned photographs, PC Stitch 6.0 works hard to make genuine use of these image files. After importing a picture, it converts it to a cross-stitch pattern. Then it analyzes the colors in the photo and identifies the palette of commercially available cross-stitch floss required to produce the image. Finally, the program displays the finished cross-stitch product onscreen. Users are thus able to tell--in a matter of moments--whether a project is going to be possible given the limitations of floss palettes, and whether it will look good when it is done. In so doing, PC Stitch 6.0 expands the scope of a stitcher's design possibilities while saving both time and labor. By combining the standard features of an electronic drawing program with the unique requirements of cross-stitch, the program also allows you to draw programs from scratch. This feature is not restricted to simply blocking out a clunky design on the basic PC Stitch grid. Users can assign different styles of stitches to various blocks of color, customizing the pattern as much or as little as they like. And for those who are less inclined to design their own work, PC Stitch 6.0 is Web friendly, linking to a frequently updated database with many new patterns. PC Stitch 6.0 is an update of an earlier package, and users who have already purchased PC Stitch 5.0 may find that the added features and increased ease of use are an insufficient incentive to upgrade. This is essentially the same package--a bit more polished, but substantially unchanged. In fact, one alteration is almost detrimental. The help library is much more intrusive, tossing up helpful windows at every turn, offering advice so frequently that users familiar with the program may find it quite annoying. Even so, PC Stitch 6.0 makes it possible to turn inner visions and handily scanned files into blueprints for cross-stitch success. Expanding the creative opportunities of experienced stitchers, it simultaneously cuts down on the time required for a project's design and planning stage. With the Web databases and design options offered in this package, you may find your old pattern books obsolete. --Alyx Dellamonica
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