# Need help choosing rhinestone software



## Nick Rocco (Sep 18, 2009)

I know that this is an issue that is almost as old as the forum itself. I have read everything that I can and I am still having some trouble selecting new rhinestone software.

I am currently using rstones with Corel X4. I have already purchased the Corel X6 upgrade and plan to install it this weekend. I will be cutting my designs on a GCC cutter. Currently running Windows 7.

I would like to upgrade my software to something a little more powerful with a few more options.

I am looking at the following software options:
WinPCsign Pro 2012
Artistic Crystals
Sierra's Hotfix Era 
EasyStone macro for Corel
Oobling

I know that many of you have several of these packages and I hoping that you can offer some pro's and con's for each. If you have multiple packages, which one do you prefer or use most and why? Also, if you sell any of these packages please feel free to give me a sales pitch - feel free to pm or e-mail on the sales pitch.

A couple of things that I like is that Artistic Crystals will add and delete stones as you resize the artwork and Hotfix offers some nice fill options including a scatter effect. On the flip side I have also read about software freezing up and other cumbersome issues with cutting or poor support.

One last thought... I know that nothing is perfect but I realy need an upgrade that will be reliable, offer some new features, offer some support when needed and that will not break the bank.

Thaks in advance for any help!
NR


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## brndagayle (Oct 29, 2009)

Hi Nick,
I'll chime in here the best I can. Of all the programs you listed above that you are considering, I either own them or have tried them.


WinPCsign Pro 2012 -- own
Artistic Crystals -- own
Sierra's Hotfix Era -- have tried demo
EasyStone macro for Corel -- own and use regularly
Oobling -- have tried the demo; own KNK Studio and ACS Design Studio (these two programs are the same as Oobling but without the advanced rhinestone features of Oobling.

I also own Drawstone macro for Corel Draw.

I honestly don't have time to give all the pros and cons of each program I own or have tried. I'm sure others will chime in and hopefully help you out.

By far, the Easy Stone macro is my favorite of all these programs for rhinestone design -- with Artistic Crystals coming in a distant second.

Before I found Easy Stone, there were features I liked about each of the other programs but there were a lot of things missing too that made it more difficult for me to do rhinestone designs. I'll be up front though and say that there is NO program that has that magic button. They all require you to do some manual manipulation of the circles -- if you are picky about your designs.

What I like the best about Easy Stone -- and then Artistic Crystals is that the circles are attached to the path -- which makes manipulating the designs easy -- until you break the circles apart. At that point, they become like the other programs and to manipulate or change the design you have to move the individual circles or start your design over.

You mentioned that Artistic Crystals increases or decreases the stones on the path as you increase/decrease the size of the design. This is true and is a great feature. Easy Stone can do this as well -- this is done differently than in Artistic Crystals but the option is available. If I'm remembering correctly, Oobling does something similar --I could be remembering wrong here.

Another thing that is important to look at when you are making your final decision. You will want to be able to select your stones by a number of characteristics -- by size, by color, by size and color, etc. I know Easy Stone can do this -- as well as selecting by other criteria as well -- but I don't believe the other programs can do this. Some can select by one or the other. Oh wait, I do believe that Win PC Sign 2012 can do this as well -- at least select by color and size stone.

Here's another thing to look for -- what kind of real world examples are demonstrated with the programs? What sold me on Easy Stone is that Kevin has literally tons of videos demonstrating everything from simple designs to complex logos. It's easy to do simple designs in all of the programs -- but what about those complex designs. 

Please feel free to contact me privately if you want further information. I know Kevin has some other tricks up his sleeve that will really knock your socks off and make rhinestone designing pretty awesome.


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## brndagayle (Oct 29, 2009)

Hey Nick,
In case you are interested in checking Easy Stone out, here is a link to Kevin's videos:

EasyStoneTemplates's channel - YouTube

Definitely worth your time to view them!


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

Depending on your budget, I would go with Easy Stone. If you want something a little more detailed, I would go with Hotfix, but there is a HUGE price difference depending on what driver you need. Also, if you don't have at least an i5 or Quad core computer, it will lock up frequently. I've been researching software for a looong time and just went throught training for Hotfix, as I'm purchasing it along with the decor rhinestone machine. It's really good software compared to some others I've tried and they add new features every 6 months. Kevin's software (Easy Stone) is a great alternative since you have corel. He has several videos to show you how to do different designs. Many of his designs were sent to him by customers, so they're not the little simple designs alot of these companies try to use for demos. He actually did a Texas Beasts and Predators design for me and they were really beautiful, neat and precise.


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## manninm5033 (Jun 12, 2007)

Jasmynn...don't consider budget, which one would you pick?!


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

manninm5033 said:


> Jasmynn...don't consider budget, which one would you pick?!


Sierra hotfix, hands down. There is no design I've had an issue designing quickly since I've had hotfix. Actually, I did a design last night that I saw on the internet. It's for a hockey team for one of my customers. I don't own the artwork, but thought it would look cool in bling. The design looked like it was originally embroidered. Now, with ordinary rhinestone software, this would have given me a headache because of the layers and how the hockey stick is over some letters and under others and through the letter O. With hotfix the process was super easy. 
Some of the pros that make life easier with it:
Custom bead bars
1.Ability to click and drag images larger and smaller and the rhinestones adjust automatically with correct spacing.
2. The different fills. Once you fill something, there's little to no manipulation required.
2. I love the outline feature and ability to separate the outline with a click.
3. Ability to edit a group of stones or one stone at a time.
4. The trace feature is wonderful. You can trace a design and each time you hit enter, it places the rhinestones. If you move the nodes, the rhinestones adjust to where you moved the nodes.
5. The vector part of the software works really good for what we use it for.
6. I love the different word design options, to curve your words, taper, etc. (they have soooo many different options to play with). 
7. Ability to edit one word at a time or one letter at a time..
8. With a click you can increase stones and decrease stones, and spacing.
9. No more buying fonts. I can digitize any font I download. I just download my fonts from dafont and use them in hotfix, it digitizes fonts really well. I even figured out how to use my purchased fonts that I got when I was using corel and rstones, I don't thought because I've found all of those fonts. 
9. I guess I could go on and on, but try the trial and see for yourself. I don't know if all of the features are included in the trial, but most of the important ones are.
The hockey design is below as well as a couple of others to show some of the variations of word designs. These designs would have take me over an hour to create without Hotfix Era. Also are some links for videos of someone using hotfix. Unfortunately, they are silent.
Sierra HotFix Era software - Rhinestone Digitizing - YouTube
Using HOTFIX ERA software to create a rhinestone motif (05) - YouTube
Using HOTFIX ERA software to create a rhinestone motif (01) - YouTube


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## manninm5033 (Jun 12, 2007)

Thank you so much for your input! I really appreciate it! I've been googling all day trying to find the trial and cannot! Can you help me with that, too?!


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

Here's the link. Make sure you fill out the hotfix tab, not the embroidery tab. Although If I were you, when you decide to purchase, I'd purchase from Mesa Distributing because they offer 1 hour free training. (At least they did for me when I purchased it with my machine). Call the Metro number in Ft. Worth and ask for Mike. Just tell him Jasmynn with Oraia Sports sent you. ( If they give you the training, ask for Bernadette). She's really good. If you purchase it from Sierra, It's $299 for their training. If you can't get training, I've done training for a couple people here on the forum. No problem, just let me know.

Demo Request:
Request a Demo


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## fedoraoriginali (Aug 30, 2010)

jasmynn said:


> Here's the link. Make sure you fill out the hotfix tab, not the embroidery tab. Although If I were you, when you decide to purchase, I'd purchase from Mesa Distributing because they offer 1 hour free training. (At least they did for me when I purchased it with my machine). Call the Metro number in Ft. Worth and ask for Mike. Just tell him Jasmynn with Oraia Sports sent you. ( If they give you the training, ask for Bernadette). She's really good. If you purchase it from Sierra, It's $299 for their training. If you can't get training, I've done training for a couple people here on the forum. No problem, just let me know.


Hi, I just watched all the video links and thank you for posting them  One question though, all the company's tutorials 3ss and 4ss stones are used. The largest stone was a 7ss. It is relatively easy to stone a design in these sizes. The most popular stone is a 10ss.
Can I ask what stone size you regularly use and the efficiency of the software for larger sized stones?
Thank you.


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## tprimack (Oct 11, 2010)

One I didn't see you mention was stone stencil by digital art solutions. I have this software and love it. It is very easy to covert designs to rhinestones, manipulate designs, chance stone size, output, etc. I also live their sequin decoration technique!


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

All of my designs are done with ss10 Stones. I only own ss10 stones, and every now and then I use ss6 clear stones, but very rarely. I didn't even notice they were using such small stones in the video. The exact same method is used when using larger stones and it works exactly the same.


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

They are using a lot of sizes. No small sizes though. Also, his bead bar is outdated. the number under the bead isn't the size, but the number in his bead bar. So, it may say three under the bead, but it's not ss3. It's just the third bead in his bar. 
The software has been updated since then. I'll take a snapshot of how the bead bars at the top looks.
Now under each bead is will say ss10, or 3mm on the top bar and on the left it's still numbered according to the lineup in your bead bar. If you hover over the bead, it tells you the color and size.
The bar at the top is your recently used beads. The one on the left side is your complete bead bar.
I've attached a snapshot of the updated bead bars. My mouse is hovered over the 2nd stone in my bead bar.


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## andiferg (Nov 26, 2012)

Mind if I interject a question here? I'm also looking for a rhinestone software... but I'm looking for one that can also cut vinyl... I realize that this might be a silly question but can I import my Adobe Illustrator file into the program (Easy Stone or Hotfix) and cut my vinyl design as well?

We have BlingIt Pro at school and it does both, I'm just wondering if this is a standard feature.

Thank ya!


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## brndagayle (Oct 29, 2009)

The ability to do that is not available with Corel Draw and the Easy Stone macro.


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

It's available in hotfix also, with the stencil making output option.
I think most rhinestone software does vinyl cutting because that's how most people make their rhinestone templates.


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

andiferg said:


> Mind if I interject a question here? I'm also looking for a rhinestone software...
> 
> We have BlingIt Pro at school and it does both, I'm just wondering if this is a standard feature.
> 
> Thank ya!


What features are you looking for that Bling !t doesn't have?


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## katruax (Sep 30, 2010)

jasmynn said:


> It's available in hotfix also, with the stencil making output option.
> I think most rhinestone software does vinyl cutting because that's how most people make their rhinestone templates.


Just to clarify... The Stencil Output Option in Hot Fix is to create a PLT file.... Now I'm told you should be able to output from HotFix directly to your cutter... I don't know of anyone that has been able to get this setup where HotFix can send the file directly to the cutter?... I'm told this is more of a cutter thing than a HotFix thing?

Does anyone here using HotFix with a cutter have a direct connection setup properly?... The reason I ask is because this is very important!!!

A direct connection is not required.. HotFix will export a PLT file with the Stencil Making Option... There is a butt though... A PLT file is actually "worthless" for cutting templates or sign vinyl... 

Attached you will find two PLT files... One created with CorelDRAW one with HotFix... There is one important thing you need to know about PLT files... PLT is a file format that was created when dinosaurs still roamed the earth... It's an old cad file format from an era gone by... PLT file can only have straight lines... But for stencil cutting for rhinestones and most vinyl cutting work we do we have curved lines... So if you look closely at a PLT file you will see lots of tiny straight lines that make up any curve in our design...

A ss10 stone has 42 nodes!!!! a ss6 has 37 nodes!!!! Anyone who does vinyl cutting knows the less nodes the better... It will take your cutter 4 times as long to cut a template when the circles have that many nodes compared to the standard nodes for a circle which is 4 nodes...

So the next step and what I have been doing is exporting from HotFix and then converting the circles to a circle with only 4 nodes in CorelDRAW... An extra step but it works... 

Jasmynn... Maybe you can confirm but the vector line output is new in the very latest version of Hot Fix that was just released a couple weeks ago no?....

I know in previous versions you could only export Hot Fix objects not vector lines for vinyl cutting...

To further complicate things a bit... HotFix does offer a EMF output option but it's not standard with their Stencil Making version... Can you get the EMF output option instead of the PLT option?... I don't know about that?... EMF is Enhanced Metafile... There when you export your files from HotFix we get circles to cut that have 4 nodes and our curved lines are just what we would expect nice and smooth with limited nodes... 

The devil is often in the details... Always best to know what you are getting before you get it... 

If you can get a direct connection to your cutter and HotFix you might be in business?... I've never been able to get my cutter setup directly... But if you have to export a PLT file and then bring that into your sign cutting program to cut you can... But if you don't want to take forever cutting templates there should be a conversion step in there to change out the circles that are to be cut to circles with only 4 nodes...

Jasmynn I know you connect to your fancy automated machine which I'm totally jealous!!

Carol and Brenda I know you guys cut with a vinyl cutter... Have you guys tried to get your cutter setup with a direct connection?...


Kevin


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## katruax (Sep 30, 2010)

brndagayle said:


> The ability to do that is not available with Corel Draw and the Easy Stone macro.


Just to be clear Andi....

Brenda is not entirely accurate... You can design in CorelDRAW with Easy Stone and then export your design to a variety of formats generally EPS and take that into any sign cutting software that came with your vinyl cutter to cut and you would be able to cut out any vinyl design or rhinestone stone or even a combination of both...

So Brenda is technically correct... You can't cut directly from CorelDRAW to your vinyl cutter unless you are using a vinyl cutter with a CorelDRAW driver... But you can design in CorelDRAW and export a vector file you can then cut with your cutting software for your vinyl cutter...

I know this is how Brenda and I do it with our vinyl cutters... As we both use KNK Studio with our KNK Vinyl Cutters

Kevin


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## idelements (Feb 3, 2009)

I have the eCut macro for Corel ($50) and cut all my templates and all my vinyl jobs directly from Corel. Doesn't have all the bells and whistles that some of the other Corel plugins offer but it does a great job for the price.


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## eawear (Jul 29, 2012)

Thanks Everyone for your input! I am new to the rhinestone world and am also looking for software for a rhinestones and would like to do vinyl as well. Another question is what kind of hotfix rhinestones would you recommend for quality and price.


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