Bitmap cleanup

i am tryimg to engrave a wine label on a cheeseboard. Problem is that the images i download to engrave are bitmaps and when i try to engrave there are LOTS of little dots that show up outside of the lettering any hints on how to get rid of them Thanx

Use a program such as getpaint.net to clean them up first.

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Specifically it’s likely your saved image is a .jpg - those are compressed and the compression causes the little dots.

Open it in a graphics program (like getpaint.net),
using the wand tool select the part you don’t want engraved (presumably white),
you’ll probably see some spots that aren’t being selected - raise or lower the tolerance until it has selected everything you don’t want it to engrave,
then hit delete

You may find that raising the contrast on your image will also clean up edges some.

Once your image is perfect save it as a .png, .gif, or .tif (none of which uses compression) and upload that to the GFUI

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:wink:Must have gotten some from the same site as

Pretty common issue that folks encounter and have to learn to deal with. Hasn’t popped up in a while as a question, but then twice rather soon.

Hard to figure out what to search for because “bitmap dots” goes to the raster pattern algorithm. However searching “bitmap cleanup” yields this one.

Always hard to figure out when you are learning about these things what search terms to use.

It bit me way back in one of my first designs and I learned what was up. I actually didn’t make a big deal of it in the post.

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Just to add, you don’t have to use a different format, JPG compression doesn’t cause them. They’re just left over from whenever the image was created/converted and not cleaned up to begin with. They show up in other formats as well.

99% of the images I work with are JPG. The only time they are not is if I started with a file sourced elsewhere, or a screenshot (which is PNG by default).

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I suggest other formats because I always end up opening my designs multiple times, and each time you re-save a .jpg it re-compresses…so your perfect design could have dots after a few revisions. I go with safer to save them as non-compressible than have to remember!

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Never had that happen in ~25 years, but go with what works for you.

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I’m sorry you ran into trouble when trying to set up your engrave. It looks like you’ve already received some excellent advice from our other community members. Thanks folks!

Did the advice they provided help you set up your print the way you wanted? Please let us know if you’re still having trouble and we’ll be happy to help.

It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.