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Stitch Toolbox

Automatic digitising

PNG to PES converter

Turn a PNG image into a PES embroidery file for Brother and Baby Lock home and PR machines, Bernina models that read PES. 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: · ·

PNG to PES: what is specific to this pair

PES is the Brother and Baby Lock format, and unlike DST it carries colours: each block is stored as the nearest entry in Brother's 64-colour palette, and newer versions add the thread's own RGB, name and catalogue number. Pick a thread chart before downloading and those names travel with the file onto the machine's screen.

A PES file also declares a hoop, and a machine refuses a design larger than its sewing field. The common fields are 100 × 100 mm (4×4), 130 × 180 mm (5×7) and 160 × 260 mm (6×10). The size presets match those, and the audit names the smallest hoop the finished design fits with 3 mm to spare.

Single-needle machines stop for every colour change. The colour list lets you merge near-duplicates and switch off colours you do not want stitched, such as a white that is really the shirt showing through.

How a PNG is read

  • A transparent PNG is the easiest input there is: every transparent pixel is background, so nothing has to be guessed about where the design ends.
  • PNG is lossless, so flat colours stay flat. The only noise is anti-aliasing: the one-pixel rim of blended colour that smooths every edge. Those rims are under 0.3 mm at stitch size and are absorbed into the shapes on either side, so they never become their own thread colour.
  • An opaque PNG (white page behind the logo) is treated like a JPG: the border colour is flooded in from the edges and removed, and enclosed areas of that same colour, the holes of letters, are left open.

What a PES file holds

  • Read by: Brother, Baby Lock and older Bernina machines.
  • Thread colours: an index into the machine maker's thread chart.
  • Trims: implicit (jump flags).
  • Longest stitch per record: 12.7 mm.
  • Written as version 1 with an embedded PEC block, which every Brother machine since the 1990s reads.

Before you export the PNG

  • Export at 1000 px or more on the long side; the digitiser works at 0.1 mm per pixel, so a 90 mm design uses about 900 px.
  • Keep the transparency if your editor offers it.
  • Flatten drop shadows and glows first: thread has no soft edges, and a shadow turns into a band of grey stitches.

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 PNG

    Drop, choose or paste it. Export at 1000 px or more on the long side; the digitiser works at 0.1 mm per pixel, so a 90 mm design uses about 900 px.

  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 PES

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

Questions

Which Brother machines read the PES from this tool?

All of them: the file is written as PES version 1 with a PEC block, the form every Brother and Baby Lock model from the PE-150 to the Luminaire and the PR multi-needle range reads from USB.

My machine says the design is too large. What now?

Set the longest side below your hoop's sewing field, not the hoop's nominal size: a 4×4 hoop sews 100 × 100 mm, so use 96 mm or less. The audit shows the smallest hoop that fits.

Can I stitch a photo?

Thread has no gradients, so a photo is reduced to flat areas of at most 12 colours. Faces and scenery come out as posterised blocks. Logos, clipart, lettering and bold illustrations are what automatic digitising does well.

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