Jules
May 11, 2021, 1:49am
7
Hmmmm…I might be a little bit confused about what caused it. Did you click on the Trace results? That creates a cut line, (or two, if you clicked directly on the black ink part of the scan) and that’s not what you want for this…it’s just going to be engraved.
If you have a scan of the recipe, you would probably want to take it into Photoshop to clean up the scan (you want a 100% white background and it’s easier to do that in a raster style software like Photoshop), then just drag and drop the JPG or PNG onto the Dashboard. It will open up in a new file, and you can use it for Engraving on anything. You can use the Shapes tools in the Glowforge interface to add a cut line around it if you want.
You did get it to work that way though, so it might be what you want. (It just takes a little longer.)
There are a few short tutorials on getting started in Design that might help you to decide which steps will work best for you depending on the kind of file you start with.
Of course we start with the first 3:
Make a snap and store box with your personal touch
It’s time to customize a print with your very own artwork. Not one for artwork, you say? Don’t worry - with your Glowforge, even simple doodles lo...
What Your Laser Can Do
To create a great design for your Glowforge, it’s useful to understand the three things your laser can do.
Cut: The laser moves slowly along a path, at full power, to cut a...
And there are methods for Enhancing your Photo Engraves and Cutting Out a Shape as well.
These are some good Design tutorials to start with:(Once you understand these, it gets really easy.)
The Trace Tool in the Glowforge User Interface can be used to scan printed artwork for engraving, and to create cut lines around the artwork, or inside the artwork, by clicking with the mouse.
There are a couple of ways to do things with the Trace Tool.
(I’m going to borrow one of Glowforge’s freebies to demonstrate since my drawing skills are non-existent. I printed this airplane out - pretend it’s hand drawn.)
The Dashboard: Sign in to app.glowforge.com
[dashboard]
Keyboard Shortcuts and Maneuvering in the Interface:
Copy (Select item)… CTRL/CMD + C
Paste (Select item)… CTRL/CMD + V
Undo … CTRL/CMD + Z
Delete (Select item) … Press the Delete key on the keyboard.
Update on Delete: _After the Autosave Settings Saver migration on 01/08/2018, if you delete a part or item from your file it will stay gone when you close it.
The next time you open the file, it will not be there.
If yo…
I’m going to demo an alignment process below using my (ancient) version of Adobe Illustrator, but the process is the same for Inkscape or CorelDraw or Affinity Designer. Whichever one you like to use, you’ll do the same things, with the tools in that program. (I’m also going to give you the thought process that goes into creating a design with 2D Design software, to keep from having to write another one up, so if you can slog through it, you’ll pick up some stuff you need to know to make thing…
It’s soooooo easy to create files easily in programs like Illustrator, Inkscape, CorelDraw and Affinity Designer if you understand what the Glowforge interface sees when it looks at your file.
(Think of this as a last batch of Tips and Tricks, then I’ll quit bugging you.)
For All Programs:
If you want to engrave a bitmap (raster) style image and include it inside a vector SVG file, you need to Embed the image in the file if you want it to stay aligned inside the SVG file. Otherwise you will need to re-load the raster file and use the camera to align it visually.
(That’s fine, but you will completely lose the benefit of more accurate alignment that you get from the design software.)
There are instructions for how to Embed raster images for some of the main 2D…
Have fun!
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