Adobe Illustrator and Vinyl Cutting... I just don't get it!

[SignsOfMaine]

fred´s tutorial was spot on, but it almost looks like you had something vector to start with? If so, depending on how those vector lines were arranged you maybe could have done it without redrawing it.

It sounds like you already figured it out, but in case anyone else was wondering about the pathfinder thing signboy mentioned... to weld stuff you´d want to ctrl+G to group them, pathfinder --> add, then object --> expand appearance to get the two different shapes into one shape. It´s a bit clunky but that´s illustrator.

 

[jerryz636]

best way i know is open high res 300 dpi image in photoshop,
1) select blue with wand tool
2) make work path from selection
3) copy the path and paste into another new path layer. Then turn that into a clipping path and save as an eps.

Works great and fast for cutting to a plotter.