I dug around a little on Google Image Search (using reverse image search) and found that this was an illustration by Sir Thomas Malory. Knowing that, I was able to search for Merlin Sir Thomas Malory in Google image and come up with some better results.
This one has a bit more resolution but it’s just a much cleaner file overall. Somewhat interestingly, Alamy is selling a reproduction of it as a stock image.
I guess they figure Sir Thomas Malory won’t be complaining 
Huh! That is strange…the original SVG that I downloaded and opened in AI opens up looking like this:
And you can see that the fills are listed as white and the strokes as black.
The SVG created from the AI file that you just loaded looks like this:
And the fills are listed as null, with the strokes as black.
No idea why there is so much discrepancy between the two. (Maybe Discourse is getting involved as well, or that first download was corrupted.)
Trying to convert the second one to an engrave in the GFUI will result in this: (After the clipping path is removed).
I think it’s still going to engrave in the “white” areas, although not as much. (But the net result is going to look like a black circle on the board, and you don’t want to just cut it.)
From Ken’s second file, (which is a jpeg, I think), I was able to create this: which is just about identical to Philips file, so you can just use that one @Xabbess - he even threw in a cutline for you.
This does absolutely nothing to teach @Xabbess how to design in her own program though…so the next time she needs a file, she has to ask Philip to make it for her. 
If you guys with a little more experience want to get ahead of the game on your designing, I put together a list of the design rules for the GFUI back in December that still holds:
And there will be some step-by-step tutorials posted later.
So check out that list… If the PR folk want a little more instruction or to look at the tutorials now, let me know…just shoot me a PM. 
@jbmanning5, thank you for explaining this so well. I had not actually understood what all the talk about multiple paths was about until your post. It clearly shows what is going on. Great job. 
Lol, the second one was supposed to be the cleaned up SVG, must have clicked on the wrong file. And though I would never hesitate to help @Xabbess any time she needed it, the reason I converted the file was just to see what it would take since I haven’t had the chance to work with the Glowforge yet. To be honest that’s why I’ve been a little shy with writing any tutorials. Outside of basic interface I’ve found teaching anybody anything in programs like AI is always very heavily influenced by the context. I’ve taught lots of people in different situations, but with something as complex as AI or photoshop (for me) where everything can be done a dozen different ways, until I can verify for myself the techniques and principles I’m using actually work for the situation, then I’m a little more hesitant to open my mouth. 
for instance the first SVG I uploaded with the terrible overlapping paths would work just fine for screen printing, but obviously not so much for a laser.
I made a tutorial that covers this. I wasnt just giving her a fish, there are instructions attached =P
Yeah, I understand (oh, for heaven’s sake, Discourse is telling me I talk too much again…) the need to try it out ahead of time…take a look at the “Rules” on that little Guide.
If you are already familiar with Illustrator, they’re more than enough to get you going. 
Matter of fact…you can design a few ahead of the game, and be ready to test it when the machines arrive.
That’s one type of overlapping path that can pause a problem. Here is another type, from another discussion:
Fantastic! I’ll just get back to designing.
Wow…this is stunning!
The tracing of a bitmap to make vectors and then working with the file to make sure fills are fills or at least combined as an object to engrave and what you don’t want to engrave is not filled is a big challenge but necessary. I have so many files that I have been working with and playing with to get a vector to engrave rather than a raster to engrave. This is something you need to do if you are doing stamp and in reverse if you are doing inlays into an engrave. Thanks for everyone joining in and contributing to the discussion and furthering my education.
And for a brief second I thought about opening my old CS version of Illustrator to try this out. Slap hands, Bad boy. Stick with Inkscape and figure it out.
Heres an updated version made from the higher res image. cut line added as well
merlin_tak.zip (277.2 KB)
Looks like folks already got a good trace of her, but might as well add mine. Got rid of most the artifacts.
Looks good.
Gosh…I’m feeling overwhelmed, but so very grateful to all of you who discussed this at length and to all of you who contributed files for me to try. And not instead of your contributions, but because of them I’ve been insprired to keep trying to make my own work. I’m closer, but no cigar. I did however, finally figure out how to make a text path today and was able to add my first personalization to something this afternoon. That was a major accomplishment for me and I’m going to post that in Made with a Glowforge. When I get this darned wizard straightened out, I’ll post a photo of my finished piece. Thank you all…very much!
I don’t have a GF yet but I am learning a ton of knowledge from all of you guyz…keep rockin my world …puhlease…thank you all for being here…my family. !
You’ll get much better results from uploading the jpegs - scanning them with the camera (if I understand correctly that’s what you did) will give lower quality results.
Using the vectors others provided here is a great approach too!
Many of the Glowforge units in the field are different - that particular setting may not work very well with Xabbess’ machine and the material she’s using. Just a heads up, any help on the forum is welcome - hopefully she also mailed support, who can offer customized advice for her unit, too.
Finding that out. Will try to be helpful but not authoritative. Especially after the tweaks to power yesterday.
Whatever you all are doing, things continue to improve. Not that I had too many complaints before.
“Try to be helpful but not authoritative” is about the best piece of advice I’ve heard all week. I kind of want to tape it on my monitor now.
I haven’t read the whole thread yet so maybe this has been answered…
As has been stated a few times… the image is pretty B&W. And now this has been vectorized. Why the big lighter band in the middle? Is that just the wood or…?
