The colors issue is very common with all companies and designs. What they said is true. I think of it as freeing me up to choose my own idea of what the colors might be. However, it can be irritating. Often the colors change as you put the design into your brand of machine. I do recommend getting an OTT light so you get the actual colors you want on cloudy days or at night. Once I stitched out browns on ivory towels and the next morning the browns were a hideous purple, not exactly right for tree bark.