HAED Seasons

[Steam.Jo]

Finally I have done enough that I can identify this bit on the original photograph:



I had been worrying with it seeming a bit dark if it was the right piece

Jo

P.S. The colours look better in natural daylight

[Serinde]

Flowers! Do I see flowers?

[Mabel Figworthy]

Definitely a picture emerging!

[rcperryls]

It always takes time to see an image with an HAED and its so cool when it happens. It is looking lovely!

Carole

[richardandtracy]

There have been a number of HAED's where I have been concerned about the accuracy of their software's thread colour selection. And I have been most concerned at the extremes of brightness.

I think it's down to their earlier software having what I would call a 'Generic thread colour definition file'. On my own software I used the same colour definition file to begin with - as far as I could trace it back, it seemed to be an unofficial DMC release dating to 2009 or earlier. However, I did find that there were colours where the digital representation was quite different from the actual thread colours my eyes saw (and I know everyone sees colours differently, but this was beyond what I was expecting). The original thread definition file used by HAED had black with an RGB value of 0/0/0 and white as 255/255/255, with all intermediate colours expanded to fill the range. Having Black & White at 0/0/0 and 255/255/255 is patently wrong as no threads absorb or reflect 100% of impinging light. It has a couple of effects.

1. Making almost all colours appear darker when stitched and loosing detail in the darkest areas.
2. Because most real thread brightnesses are less than 128/128/128, the colours had to be shifted more to the lighter end, so expanding the darker end more than the lighter end, and making more colours convert to black than should be done.
3. Artificially reducing the range of colours in the mid range (as the colours have been expanded away from the middle)
4. In some images, making green threads seem good substitutes for browns when they are not.

As a result in 2018, I went & took a photo of all the threads in the 2017 real thread colour card in one photo, corrected for a slight colour cast and vignetting by writing a special to purpose one-off colour correction program and developed my own colour definition file. This seems to give somewhat different results from the HAED conversions and looses less detail in the darkest of colour areas. The very brightest points of an image may loose detail a little after conversion in my program, but I think the RMS error between an original photo and the stitched result is considerably reduced.

So, I'm sorry to say that I am not actually surprised you're finding the HAED a bit dark if it's an older conversion. I simply don't know the state of their current software, whether it's any better or not.

Ignoring the HAED colours, I think your work on this is absolutely spot on. the stitches are lovely & even and the picture is emerging. Really good.

Regards,

Richard

[Serinde]

Is that why I can hardly see my HAED squirrel on my HAED tree? (the eye of faith is a wonderful thing, but I was disappointed...)

Nevertheless, Jo's stitching is marvellous.

[richardandtracy]

Is that why I can hardly see my HAED squirrel on my HAED tree? (the eye of faith is a wonderful thing, but I was disappointed...)

Nevertheless, Jo's stitching is marvellous.

I fear it may be the case that it was the HAED charting that was the problem.

But yes, Jo's stitching is enviable.

Regards,

Richard.