Ok question?
Does anyone know how to engrave the background of a picture so lettering, trees etc stay raised? I am including a picture for reference. (This is not my picture) I tried putting a circle around it and inverting it and it wanted to engrave both images. Help?
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The background needs to be black and the letters/trees and whatever else you want to be raised need to be white. It wanted to engrave both images because the white parts must be knocked out/subtracted from the circle in your design software. (Just putting a white shape on top of a black shape doesn’t work, they’re both still separate shapes) An alternative to get around this is to rasterize your image before sending it to the GFUI.
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A much quicker way to do this is to simply cut the letters out and glue them onto the background. You get the same raised foreground effect without having to burn all of that background away. It also gives a much cleaner look, in my opinion.
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If you engrave the letters a bit first and then cut them out the letters will fit tight and secure in exactly the correct place. 
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Can you go into detail for the knock out or subtracting. Sorry I am new to this process. If it helps I use Inkscape. Is there some other app I should or could use?
In Inkscape it’s called “Difference” - it subtracts one object from another. The GF will skip the “empty” areas when engraving.
Here is one topic that is describing what you are trying to do. Getting the right terms for searching and for the operations in a design program can be a challenge to learn.
Fill the shape you want to be the background.
Make your text and other design.
Convert text to path. In Inkscape you ungroup too and the combine all the lettering and design you want raised.
Select the design and then the background too. Then Path Difference.
Something like that. Check the tips and tricks section for more help
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