I saw a really pretty design recently, but noticed it was a cross stitch design with about 50 color changes.

Just read this in my 4D book--The same type of stitches stitch out first--so even if a design has only 3 colors, you will have 9 color colors if the design uses 3 kinds of stitches--like cross-stitch, half cross-stitch, and backstitch. There can be so many kinds of stitches, that 50 is probably not that uncommon.

I agree with lbrow that it depends upon the design. I have done several that had many many... thread changes but the end result was well worth it.

Not necessarily ewroland it depends on the design itself, If u r painting a large picture it may have a lot of different colors n it, it's the same way with a design. Bear n mind u can always use whatever colors u want to & if u do not want to use a lot of different colors, then decide what u do want to use before u start the design. *4U

I downloaded file called fun animals from a site,cant remember which one,have stitched out a wee mouse. There were not too many changes. Guess it depends on the design

to the top...I can't begin to think of an answer for this one.....

I think so! I recently did a sampler and there were sooo many changes--It had a two-color frame around it and it stitch left top corner, right bottom corner, right top corner . . . you get the picture? I thought maybe I forgot color-sort, but I loved the end result and so did my mom for mothers day. I bet a digitizer will come along with the explanation shortly, and I'm looking forward to reading their comments. Thanks for asking.