Anyhow… I have my first custom image I’d like to engrave and cut out. I’ve done the samples, used the scan feature, and am now wanting to use the computer to get the graphic ready to use. Cut and engrave.
I have and am pretty good with Adobe Photoshop Elements, but I read you can’t do the “cut” part and converted to svg files aren’t that great. Suggestions? Inkscape? Help! Thanks a bajillion and one.
I love questions like this becasue you get to see how everyone else does things.
If you want a scalloped edge here’s what I’d do.
-I’d import the bitmap flower into your drawing program, select the drawing pen and trace around the edge. The “B-slpine” drawing tool is perfect for this and it just took a couple of minutes to get the vector outline. I agree with @evansd2 and made a few adjustments to the flower too. I upped the contrast a bit, used a brush tool to dodge (lighten) the overly dark center, darkened the two bright petals a bit, “unsharp mask”, then “sharpen”. Then I took the brush again and used it to selectively sharpen the beautiful water drops a bit more. (See bottom pic.)
I’m not sure where the draw tool is in your program, but here’s what it looks like in Corel.
Actually, I would copy visible to new layer and then Edit > Clear will leave just the Flower and inverting the selection you can create a path so you can grab that selection at any time. then if exported to PNG you have a nice clean image that can use the trace function in Inkscape for a clean cut vector.
I always copy visible so I keep the original pristine in case I need it again and then freeze that layer so it does not show up again.
Just to add to the “What other people do” thing, I have Photoshop so I select the back ground, invert selection then go to Paths. Make path from selection the save path. You can then copy past the path into Illustrator and place the image in it. I am not sure how this would work with Elements and Inkscape.
Sometimes I am able to select the paths copy and then paste them in Illustrator. I have the latest CC cloud version. Strangely this doesn’t work randomly. But it does most of the time.