Silhouette!

Hello friends!

It's been a while since we have posted.  There is just SO MUCH going on around here.  Christmas has come and gone, and the Davis household was only able to celebrate for a short time, as Grandma Lue was sick and in the hospital.  Although things were touch and go for a few days, Grandma seems to be doing much better now, and is on the road to recovery.

In other news, we did get to open our presents and both Mom and I got Silhouette Cameos for Christmas!  Yes, we already own Cricuts, but the Silhouette Cameo can do SO MUCH MORE.

Please go research it, you won't be sorry.

The MAIN reason we wanted the SC: the print and cut feature!

This means we can print our digital stamps, then use the Silhouette to cut them out! Just google Silhouette print and cut to see ENDLESS tutorials regarding this very cool feature.

Disclaimer: the Silhouette Studio software uses a technique called pixel tracing to form the cut lines around images.  This means the software "sees" dark pixels as lines, and cuts around them.  A very efficient method for what I like to call "solid line stamps." But what happens when you have a stamp that is stylistic, and has broken lines all the way around?

That's what this blog post is about.  Some of my favorite stamps are by Mo Manning.  You can visit her shop HERE.

As you can see, her images have broken lines around the image as a stylistic feature of her drawings. This throws the Silhouette for a loop.  After MUCH trial and error and an email to Silhouette customer service (which ROCKS, by the way) I have found the solution!

I don't know if everyone already knows this or not, but when I was trying to figure it out, there were absolutely NO tutorials on how to get a good trace on images like these.  I REFUSED to accept that it couldn't be done. The Silhouette can do ANYTHING!

Step one:

Import your image into Silhouette Studio (SS) and place image on your virtual mat.  My Copic paper is 8.5x11, so I resized the virtual paper for that.

This image is called "Dream" and I love it because we have so many pilots in the family.  It reminds me of that quote by Leonardo DaVinci that says "For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." 

Next step:

Take a trace of your image.  You can do this by clicking the blue and yellow icon fifth from the right in the upper right hand corner, click "select trace area," highlighting the area you want to trace, turn off "high pass filter," and adjust threshold to make your yellow lines as solid as possible.  You will want to avoid turning it all the way to 100% like other trace tutorials.  I have found this just makes the lines thicker and you end up with a trace that isn't very precise.  Then click the option "trace outer edge."  This is where the computer has trouble.  See in the image above, all the red lines are "cut" lines.  Well, I don't want to cut all in the image like that.  But since the outer edge is not one solid line, the computer doesn't know how to recognize that.

Move your image away from your "mat" and you're left with the red cut lines.

Now, this is one of my favorite features of Silhouette Studio.  It's the "offset" feature.  this draws a line around your image at a specified distance from the original trace line.  It defaults to a quarter inch.  I prefer a smaller border around my images, so I size it down to 0.1"

As you can see here, it offsets ALL cut lines, even the ones on the inside. Thats ok! Sit tight, the magic is coming!

Grab the outside line (where you have "offset" the image, and drag it away from the other cut lines.

Then you can box up all the extra cut lines (the ones on the left in the above image) and delete them.

Now, your other cut lines would be perfect if it weren't for those random shapes in the middle!

If you click on the cut lines, it selects the whole image, weird interior shapes and all.  You have to release the compound path first, to be able to delete them. Right click the image and select "release compound path."  Don't ask me any technical details about compound path, it has something to do with layers, I still don't understand it fully, but it does what I want it to in this case.

Now just right click and delete/cut the pieces you don't want.  Make sure you look closely, there can be some teeny tiny dots of red that the silhouette will still cut.  Also, make sure your monitor is clean.  I spent forever one night trying to "delete" a piece of dust off my screen.

This should be what you're left with.  An outline and the original image.

You can now move the original image back into the outline, making sure it is centered in the cut line.

You can now make a box around both the cut line and the image, right click and group them together.  Now you can resize and move the image and the cut line without any changes in the orientation of either one.

WOOHOO!

Now you just print and cut like normal.
-show registration marks
-print on computer
-send to silhouette
-detect registration marks automatically
-CUT!!! :-)

I hope this all makes sense and helps someone.  It's the first tutorial I have ever done!  Let me know if I can answer any questions!

Happy crafting!

-Abby