Skull vector

[Darren Neely]

Thanks for that, however I still can’t get a smooth outline.
I am trying to cut the image out of Vinyl on my little hobby plotter and the only way I know how to do this is to use the magic wand in Photoshop to highlight the black bits and then right click and make work path, I can then import this into WinPCSIGN and cut it. Unfortunately the image is too pixelly so the path isn’t smooth, or am I missing something simple, I’m new to this so please excuse my stupidity!

Darren

[Hugh Potter]

quote Darren Neely:

Thanks for that, however I still can’t get a smooth outline.
I am trying to cut the image out of Vinyl on my little hobby plotter and the only way I know how to do this is to use the magic wand in Photoshop to highlight the black bits and then right click and make work path, I can then import this into WinPCSIGN and cut it. Unfortunately the image is too pixelly so the path isn’t smooth, or am I missing something simple, I’m new to this so please excuse my stupidity!

Darren

does photoshop have the ability to edit the nodes that dictate where the cut paths run?

if not you’ll need a program capable of doing to Ai, coreldraw, signlab etc, i’ve not looked at the vector attached but i’m guesing you’ll need to delete lots of unrequired nodes that were created by the trace program and edit the curves as you go.

it is very worthwhile learning how to do this as any custom work will involve nodes and the ability to edit them and the paths between.

Hugh

[Jamie Wood]

Strange…the AI file looks pretty smooth. You should be able to import this
into your cutting software. The blue file is only there to compare to.

[Hugh Potter]

quote Jamie Wood:

Strange…the AI file looks pretty smooth. You should be able to import this
into your cutting software. The blue file is only there to compare to.

i can’t open it because ai14 is too new for my corel to recognise but, i’m wondering if Darren’s software is importing it as an eps but displaying it as a bitmap? that might be why it’s pixelly. i’m not familiar with photoshop so it’s just a guess but, i thought photoshop did images and ai did the vector stuff?

[Darren Neely]

Thanks for the replies and advice guys, I have just managed to work out how to edit the vector path, I didn’t think it was possible but I have figured it out, but I’ve decided that I might be better just to draw around it myself and then edit my path rather than get the computer to do it as mine seems to be closer to start with, although I am making this up as I go along so who knows!
If I try to import the ai file directly into WinPCSIGN I just get a blank screen doesn’t seem to see the picture unless I have added the vector path

Darren

[Jamie Wood]

See if this is any better.

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Attachments:

Skull-1.ai

[Darren Neely]

Thanks for your time with this Jamie, I don’t have photoshop on this computer so I’ll have a look at it tomorrow and see if I can get there.
I have started tracing it and I don’t think I’m doing too bad a job so that might be the way I have to do it.

Cheers
Darren

[Darren Neely]

That is fantastic Jamie thank you so much.

Can I ask how you did it as I don’t want to keep having to ask people to do things for me I’d much prefer to learn as I go.

Darren

[Jamie Wood]

Hi Darren,

I used the auto trace in Illustrator to do this. I didn’t edit the finished result, as
I thought that it looked OK as it was. Unfortunately, the selection and make
path tools in Photoshop don’t always produce very good results, although it is
fairly easy to clean the result up with the pen and selection tools. Do you have
Illustrator? It is far superior to Photoshop for this type of work.

A lot of people on the boards use CorelDRAW, which also has excellent vector
and auto tracing tools.

Ideally, either of these programs would benefit you, and allow you to re-draw
logos and create artwork from scratch.

[Darren Neely]

No I don’t have Illustrator just Photoshop.
I shouldn’t have to do this sort of thing very often I’m just doing it for a bit of a hobby, and that logo is an old one from a VW Club I’m a member of so I wanted to produce some car stickers, hopefully most things I will be doing will be simple text stuff for displays at work.

Thanks again for your time Jamie

Darren