Mountain Harmony Creations PC Software Comparison

Updated 09/05/2005


	I have been using Plastic Canvas Design Studio for a few years now. For the price, I think it works well. The hardest part with PCDS is converting/creating designs from pictures when there are a lot of 'shades' of color in the picture. I just recently purchased PC Professional from LewRan Soft Inc. It's pricier than PCDS. The feature I wanted the most was the ability to cut-away the canvas. I was also impressed with it's converting software - it did a better job than PCDS, and the patterns are saved to .bmp files, which are easily used in word processing and graphic software. I have found a few things I don't like as well as PCDS though - one is the way it does the gridlines. The stitches don't seem to be as clear either. An example of the differences can be seen in the Care Bears "basic bear" pattern, on the Cartoons page. The left one is PC Pro, the right one is PCDS. I would love to hear others' thoughts on these and other pattern software! Below is a table comparing the two software packages that I use. I will be adding more details as I use more of the features and compare the two packages. I hope to add more examples of how to use the software, with tips & tricks that I have found helpful!


	Plastic Canvas Design Studio visit their website	PC Professional 1.5 visit their website
Stitch Presentation	Better: Clearer colors	Can adjust stitch sizes
Replacing Stitch Color	Better: Easy to change colors using palette	Can use Fill Tool, didn't change all stitches
Color Matching	Not able to do (but don't really need it with their palette)	Has color match tool and works well, is helpful with their palette design
Gobelin Stitch	Better: Can create point to point stitch with mouse, any size, easily.	More difficult to place stitches. Beyond covering 3 bars, cannot get stitch to position nicely. (I overlay stitches to get the desired length. It works.)
Pattern file format	Saves to a PCDS format, not readable by other software.	Better: Saves as .bmp file. Can be read, sized, by most other software.
Printing	Can Print to a .bmp file or printer, no image sizing though.	Better: allows sizing
Graph lines	Better: can adjust thickness	Can display lines, cannot turn them 'off' to re-adjust a pattern though.
Canvas Removal	Not able to do	Better: Can remove sections of canvas as desired
Importing picture	Good, especially if clear image, allows easy manipulation for sizing, color adjustments	Good, seems more clear, but isn’t as flexible for manipulating the pattern size, no color adjustments
Cut & Paste	Very easy to use, works quite well	Harder to figure out how to use, not as user-friendly, but seems to work. Does allow cutting a section to a new .bmp file, which is handy.