Good embroidery design is as much a result of the proper choices in the area of stitch types, densities, stitch direction, proportion and color choices as it is a result of an initial design choice. What I mean by this is that you can take beautiful artwork and autodigitize it and end up with a flat boring and uninspired piece of embroidery. Especially if you are using autodigitizing software it is usually essential to go back afterwords and make some editing changes to truely make your design come to life. Embroidery is a textual artform and needs to be approached from that angle. It is important that you remember that the way the light is reflected off of the stitches is going to add to the 3-dimensionality of the overall design. The more variety of stitch types, lengths and directions, the more interest and life the design will have. so keep these aspects in mind as you are creating your next design and you will see a marked change in your results.