Contour Cutting Help/suggestions

[Saltedlake450]

Hi guys,

I recently aqquired a vinyl express 130(its exactly like a graphtec) The reason i got it is because i want to get into contour cutting, but I still outsource my banner and vinyl printing. I was wondering if I could get some help:

Im looking to outsource the printing work and then just contour cut on the vinyl express using its registration system, but since im still new to this, im still not sure how I would be able to pull this off.

95% of the work i send my printer is in a jpeg, do you guys think there is a way I can add the registration marks to the jpeg, that way the printer just prints what i send them and once i get the printed vinyl i can just contour cut?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!

 

[Saltedlake450]

ttt

 

[sfr table hockey]

You might get slammed here with this one as it has been covered many times but...

Cut lines need to be a stroke that tells the printer that when it sees that spot color on a stroke it does not print it but cuts instead. How you get that stroke created is what you need to be able to do. Then there are other issues that come up when you have drop shadows and such and your cut line does not want to work or you drop images on to your layout to find when printed there is a faint box around it in the rest of the file and you can't get it to stop.

Some programs can trace a photo (or bitmap or jpeg) and create a vector which could be used to make your cut line. Illustrator, Flexi and more.

If you just place your jpeg and tell the program to add a stroke or outline it will do so around the box of the jpeg. Basically your picture or jpeg is what you see plus the outer fill is all white so this is why you get a box around your image. You are dealing with pixels to make your image and not lines or paths. A jpeg can only be blown up to a point and then it gets pixelated. A vector can go as big as you want as it is created as lines or paths to make your image and most times has a solid fill but more can be done.

You could use the mouse and draw a line around your jpeg and get a cut line but you would not like what you get.

If a basic rectangle or oval works for your image as a cut line you could do that easily but to have the cut line 1/8" off set to your image is harder unless you have the software tools.

Don't fall for the guy who says he is a circle designer if he comes on here.... I heard he is not really that good.

Do you use any software for designs right now?

Once we know what you have to work with we might be able to give a better walk through.