I need help with my print and cut on my Silhouette Portrait. I can get simple things done, but my problem is, I think I'm making this too difficult. I designed a card in Photoshop. Then saved each layer as a .png or .jpg and then I opened an 8.5 x 11 blank document in my Silhouette software and drug in my layers. Now the rectangle layers I just draw a rectangle over the top for the traced edge. My problem is tracing around irregular shapes that have a white background. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos that show selecting around the shape and then bumping up the High Pass Filter until it gets most of the shape outlined. Isn't there a way to just tell it to trace around the outside edge of a .png? Also, is there a easier way to get my layers from Photoshop into my Silhouette software?
I put all of the elements I want to print and cut onto a single page (8x10 so there is room for the registration marks) then delete out the white background layer and save it as one png file together. Then after I sav the color version I flatten the layers (still no background), ctrl click for marching any around each item and fill with black. Save that as a separate png file. Then you can open the color version on one page in the silhouette and add registration marks and print, then open the black one on another page and select the whole thing as your trace area. Copy just the cut lines from that file and paste them to the color one and move them to be aligned. (This took longer to type than it does to do.). That's what I do because the high pass fill doesn't ever seem to fill it all for tracing - bu someone else might have an easier way!
I know heather suggested to me once to put a small black stroke around everything so the high pass will catch everything. That hasn't worked very successfully for me. But maybe it will for you. I'm going to they that double copy thing and see if that works better for me.
I too use PS to put all of the png's onto an 8.5x11 canvas and save as a png. I open in silhouette. When tracing, I turn off the high filter pass and bump up the threshold and adjust the scale until it works for me to get a good trace.
TURN OFF THE HIGH FILTER PASS!!! then move up the threshold to 100%... if your element is pure white though, it will not see it, in that case do a thin gray stroke around it to find it
Yes, this is exactly what I do. It works like a charm. I was so happy when Heather taught me the trick about the gray stroke, I've definitely used it a time or two. Also I don't know why I've never thought to export a whole page as a png file to cut...I do almost all of my work in silhouette studio, but for those times where I want to work everything out in my scrapping software first this will be a HUGE timesaver!
Hehe, that's right stroke and turn of high pass. Threshold is what you move up. Despite the fact I worded it wrong it still doesn't work well for me. Hope it does for you Karen!
Thank you for all these suggestions! I can't wait to get home and finish the card I was trying to make last night! I sure wish there was ctrl-click in Silhouette's software so we could skip jumping through these hoops! Putting all the bits on one png is brilliant too! Seems like I tried the stroke on the last project I was working on, but I think I used a black stroke and then I could see it, so I didn't like that. I even messed around with the offset cut line, etc and it seemed like too much fiddling around. I'm excited to play again now!
ITA! Also, try using the low pass filter with the threshold. I turn the low pass way up, and mess about with both the low pass and threshold until the whole image is yellow, then tell it to trace around the outside. I wish the Studio software spoke the same language as the Adobe software! I don't find the Silhouette very intuitive. But, when you figure something out (like this way to trace, above), it's dead easy to use.
