Electronic Design Software

Need software to draw designs that can be digitized & embroidered. Corel? Photoshop?

I have been drawing out (on pencil & paper) simple designs hoping to have them embroidered to make appliques and patches. I take them to someone who digitizes designs so that they can be embroidered, I always discover my lines and curves are not straight, and the designs come out looking sloppy and lopsided. Is there a computer program I can use to make my lines and curves neater? Which Photoshop or Corel program should I use? Is it easy to learn to draw using these programs? I've also heard of electronic notepads/sketchpads? Which ones are good and not too costly? i know I'm asking for a lot of answers, thanks so much! Anything you can share would help.

Public Comments

1. Corel Draw would be the best thing for this.
2. If im understanding your needs correctly, the kind of program that you should look for is one that uses vector graphics rather than raster- vector is a mathematical format that works out coordinates or points and then draws lines between those points. they often have smoothing capabilities and are good for illustrations. so what happens is you mark two points, it draws a line or a curve between those 2 points, and you can then go back and bend the line, extend it, manipulate it, which is great for that kind of thing. and dont worry- it does all the math, you dont have to. Photoshop is good for sketching using a stylus or digital pen, and excellent for photo manipulation, but isnt that great with vector graphics- you should look at adobe illustrator instead- personally I dont find illustrator that great, but I admit that I havent used it all that much, and other people seem to work wonders with it. there are a lot of tutorials available in the internet, as well as free ebooks that take you step by step through the working of the program inkscape is another vector program you can try- its opensource so its free to download and use check out http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Galleries for some idea of what it is capable of