Good morning, trying to cut out the attached logo on acrylic. When I load the image GF sets to engrave automatically and says bmp can only be engraved, it also looks like the GF camera is picking up the background texture…just want a simple b/w cutout. Any suggestions/direction will be appreciated. TIA. Melbourne Beach Bill
You can’t cut bitmaps/rasters. Convert to vector.
Edited to add - many of those leaves will likely cut away completely, you probably need to rework the design to make them thick enough to stay attached.
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Yes. Alternatively, you could just create an outline (using Glowforge Premium if you have it) and engrave the rest.
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Thank you!
Thank you, I do have premium, thinking that I put the picture in the GF and then do the outline correct? Thanks again, B
Yes, put the bitmap in, set it for engraving, then choose Outline. It will default to a 0.25” border but you can make it smaller with the slider.
The software will create a separate operation for the outline, which you can set to Cut as it’s a vector.
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Here it is in .svg format:
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The problem with that picture as-is, is that there is that grey background – so GF is going to put a big square outline around the thing, instead of around the part you likely want cut:
There’s a number of ways of fixing that…
(1) In Photoshop (or some other tool) remove the background, then drop it into GF
(2) In Illustrator (or GIMP, or some other tool) convert the whole thing to vector, get rid of that background, and do what you will.
… probably more ways … 
There’s even https://remove.bg/ which is a slick tool for removing backgrounds from photographs. I used that to get this:
(it’s lower resolution, you’d have to pay remove.bg for a higher resolution version)
Here you can see how I created an outline in GF UI:
Good luck!
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Thank you very much!
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Thank you, as you can tell, I’m new to this, but it’s a blast learning, really do appreciate it.
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Happy to help!
Is there a class that you would recommend so that I can become more proficient at design?
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You’re in class right now! This place taught me almost everything I know, questions will get you there, and it’s not as difficult as it seems from the beginning.
This Youtube channel is also a great source for Inkscape.
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+1
There’s a ton of resources right here on this forum, and always folks willing to help you learn how to do stuff.
These design tools can be complicated and take a long time to master, but keep learning and you’ll get it!
Finding some basic beginner tutorials for whatever design tool you have can definitely be helpful, but sometimes more generic tutorials don’t focus on the the skills you’re really looking for when doing designs for laser cutters.
That’s why this forum is so great 
keep asking questions! folks will give you answers and help you learn along the way.
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I put this together a while back and it is still what I do. You can also max out the Contrast to get all black and white and even thicken those bits where the leaves need some support.
True…
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