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Automatic digitising

JPG to JEF converter

Turn a JPG or JPEG photo or scan into a JEF embroidery file for Janome, Elna and Kenmore embroidery machines. The picture is digitised in your browser: real fills, satin columns and underlay, sized in millimetres, with a measured audit.

Drop a logo or picture
or click to choose, or paste from the clipboard
PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP, SVG · the image stays on your device

No artwork at hand? Try a sample: · ·

JPG to JEF: what is specific to this pair

JEF is the Janome, Elna and Kenmore format. It stores each colour as an index into Janome's own thread chart and names a Janome hoop in its header, chosen from the size of the design: up to 50 × 50 mm the free-arm hoop C, up to 126 × 110 mm hoop F, up to 140 × 200 mm hoop B, up to 200 × 200 mm the square hoop, and above that the large-field code. Some machines refuse a file whose hoop they do not own, so size the design for a hoop you have.

In practice that means keeping the design inside your hoop's sewing field with a few millimetres to spare. The audit names the smallest listed hoop the finished design fits, and the hoop fit checker lists every Janome field if you are unsure which yours is.

Because colours are chart indices, choose the Janome chart under thread matching and the numbers on the machine's screen will be the spools to reach for.

How a JPG is read

  • JPG has no transparency, so the background is found by colour: the dominant colour along the frame is flooded in from the edges and removed. A logo on a plain white or coloured page works; a logo on a photograph does not.
  • JPEG compression leaves ringing, a faint halo of off-colour pixels around every edge. Left alone it becomes a second, slightly different red around your red. The digitiser detects colours that exist almost only as thin rims next to a near twin and folds them back in, which is why a JPG of a three-colour logo still comes out as three threads.
  • Colours are clustered in CIELAB, the colour space built around what the eye tells apart, and any two clusters closer than about 11 ΔE are merged: closer than that, no thread chart offers two different spools anyway.

What a JEF file holds

  • Read by: Janome, Elna and Kenmore machines.
  • Thread colours: an index into the machine maker's thread chart.
  • Trims: zero-length jumps.
  • Longest stitch per record: 12.7 mm.
  • Colours are indices into the Janome thread chart, which is what the machine screen shows.

Before you export the JPG

  • Use the largest, least compressed copy you can find; a 300 px thumbnail has about one pixel per 0.3 mm at left-chest size, which is below what a satin column needs.
  • Crop to the logo so the frame colour really is the background.
  • A phone photo of a printed logo works if it is lit evenly and shot square on; shadows become extra colours.

What the digitiser does with it

Shapes under 0.9 mm wide become a triple running stitch, long shapes up to 3.4 mm satin columns that turn with the shape, and everything wider a staggered tatami fill with an edge walk and an underlay sewn across it. Rows are lengthened by the fabric's pull compensation, each colour runs a little under the next, and travel inside a shape is sewn as hidden running stitches rather than jumps. The main tool page has the full method with every number.

Already have a stitch file and only need a different format? That is a conversion, not digitising: use the embroidery file converter, which keeps every stitch to 0.1 mm.

Other inputs and formats

How to use it

  1. 1

    Add the JPG

    Drop, choose or paste it. Use the largest, least compressed copy you can find; a 300 px thumbnail has about one pixel per 0.3 mm at left-chest size, which is below what a satin column needs.

  2. 2

    Set the size and fabric

    Longest side in millimetres, and the fabric it will be sewn on. Both change the stitches.

  3. 3

    Check colours, preview and audit

    Merge or switch off colours, drag the compare slider, play the sew-out and read the audit.

  4. 4

    Download the JEF

    JEF is pre-selected; add other formats if you need them. The ZIP includes a colour sheet and the audit.

Questions

My Janome does not see the file on the USB stick.

Janome machines look in a folder named EmbF5 (older models) or Embf (newer ones) at the top of the stick, and the stick should be FAT32 and 16 GB or smaller. Put the JEF in that folder.

Which hoop does the file ask for?

It depends on the design size: under 50 × 50 mm hoop C, under 126 × 110 mm hoop F, under 140 × 200 mm hoop B, under 200 × 200 mm the square hoop. At the default 90 mm that is hoop F.

Can I get PES or DST from the same picture?

Yes. Tick as many formats as you like; one digitised design is written to each, and they all sew identically.

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