Photoshop SVG won't cut on the GF

I created a design in Photoshop and saved as a SVG. when I upload to GF, it is telling me that a bitmap can not be cut and will only give me the engrave option. Am I saving wrong? Is there software or process to make it a GF cutting SVG?

I don’t think you can save it as an SVG from Photoshop. :thinking:

We’ve got a tutorial on the correct way to do it from Illustrator, Inkscape or Affinity Designer though:

(Just drag your Photoshop jpeg into one of those programs and Embed it.)

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You cannot cut a bitmap (raster), you can only cut vectors. A SVG file can contain either or both vectors and rasters - and only the vector can be cut. Rasters can be engraved only. I don’t know if photoshop can convert or trace a bitmap to make it a vector. There are tutorials on this site which can tell you how to do it using other software such as inkscape or illustrator.

You can but it’s not the most friendly experience.

Just saving as an SVG won’t make it a vector. SVGs are container-type files that can hold both raster and vector elements. And it sounds like you just saved an SVG with raster/pixel components. Raster/pixel elements can only be engraved.

If you draw something with the pen, for example, in photoshop, you should be able to save it as a vector.

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:woman_facepalming: Sorry, must have had a brain blip there…if you read through this tutorial it explains the different file types and what they do:

Laser Design Basics 🤔

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Yup, can get confusing even to someone with your knowledge factors!

@mspaventa, svg and PDF are what is called container files they can contain either raster or vector or both.

Work through those tutorials Jules suggested and things will become much clearer.

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I love Photoshop (except when it has weird errors) for working with images I plan to etch.

But can’t use it to create files for cutting. Nada.

CorelDraw is an option, and Inkscape is great (esp. since free!), and you can import an file that you want to etch, so only need to load one file into your GFUI to cut and etch.

If you want to use CorelDraw to create SVG files, don’t get the Student version–it doesn’t have the feature for importing jpegs/png to create one file for cutting and etching.

You can export paths from PS to AI, but I don’t think you can directly export paths to a SVG vector file (it generates an AI file when you do the export)

You can definitely export paths to Illustrator (that is its own menu option). I have a tutorial somewhere about making outline cuts doing just that.

Coincidentally, @jbv actually just posted a tutorial on exporting paths to SVG.

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I was inspired to write it after looking at this thread.

here, I’ll link it!

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