Hi, I’m a total newbie. Both with GF and Ai. Although I’ve made some cool things. I’m trying to trace this image of my Alma Mater to engrave cowboy and cut out the “M”. The royal is the actual printout. Gave me these white areas. Then I colored the blue black and still I get these white areas. How do I stop this?
Unfortunately, a reflection on the material can cause that when you are using the Trace function. It happens in solid areas of color sometimes.
You can use the CTRL/CMD + Up and Down Arrow Keys to change the amount of data that is being picked up for the engrave.
Tutorial here:
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Are you using the Illustrator trace or the Glowforge trace?
The GF trace. I thought would be very simple given it’s basically black and white?
Thank you. Did not know that!
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I have found that putting a couple of layers of masking tape over the two camera flash LED’s for the trace scan cut a reflection that resulted in spots like that.
I also turned out the room lights.
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Definitely give the shortcut keys a try. They basically modify the threshold of what is picked up, and can help quite a bit.
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Hey, that’s a great tip! I’ll remember that.
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Yeah, I was trying to get a clean scan, and the contrast adjustments helped, but I couldn’t eliminate the spots completely. I realized they were a result of reflection when changing the room lighting changed the spots. 
When I muted the flash with tape they disappeared.
I can’t remember if It took 2 or 3 layers of masking tape, but the spots got smaller with each layer. 
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I did think about that. Have not tried. Will try that. Ty!
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I did try that. Did help, but unfortunately did not correct all the way that I needed. Will try the masking tape over the lights!
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