designing in photoshop for vinyl cut not contour?

[soulclaimed]

Hi

I have done a simple design in photoshop but when i flatten image to enable me to copy into inkscape it pixelates, how can i fix the design to make it ready for cutting as otherwise it takes a long time and is really untidy, also the fonts in photoshop are not clean they are all pixelated along the edges, other than redoing the lines in inkscape what can i do do neeten this up for cutting as the trace bitmap cause lots of nodes and an untidy cut , i have attached my image[ATTACH=CONFIG]1734[/ATTACH]

[Paul]

photoshop is raster software and you need vector design to cut. so i would sugest to design it in vector in first place. But if you have it in layers then you can try export it to paths in illustrator.

[Justin]

I ran the file through Vector Magic for you and it seems quite clean. You may need to tweak the design as there are some steep angles if you intend to vinyl cut.

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum/im ... _proof.png

[arko]

Thumbs up for vectorMagic... a top programme... although I even have to run an image through it a few times to get the desired result. Maybe try converting the image to white/black (reverse or negative view). I have done that sometimes with a 2 colour (B/W) image, and it has sometimes (not all the time ) worked because you are only cutting the contours.

[mrs maggot]

is vector magic still free to use and save designs ?

[Justin]

Not so much so, you get a couple of free online vectors but that's all.

[John G]

If you want to design things for cutting you can use coreldraw and then export as an eps - or you could use the program that came with the cutter.

Cheers John

[soulclaimed]

i dont have corel draw but managed to get a clean copy from the trace bitmap option in inkscape using brightness cutoff and it came out really clean, thanks guys

[kris_hm]

hi. just two suggestions which may help as well:
1. when you create design in photoshop, make sure you're doing it in very high resolution, higher=better (too high will slow down your computer so don't go crazy), that will reduce pixel size and should be easier to convert to vectors
2. use tt fonts (True Type) as they are vector based and won't pixelate when zoomed in

[soulclaimed]

thanks kris didnt think about the true type thing :/