Images are all square ?

[Kemble]

Hola signs101, ltns

I tried searching for my issue because I think what I'm encountering could be a common noobie issue but my search queries are not returning the results that I want.

I've created some images in photoshop that I want to make die cut stickers out of. My issue is when I open them up in Flexi they are square images and I can not select the image itself to add a contour cut to it. I've tried saving as eps, pdf, tiff but nothing.

Could someone make me feel stupid and tell me how to save my photoshop images so that when I bring them into Flexi I can select just the image itself so I can add a contour cut line to it?

Thanks

 

[J Hill Designs]

photoshop is a raster program - anything exported from it will be 'square' -- create image, bring into illustrator, create cutline, export as eps

 

[Rob_maxgrafix]

well ps is raster based, and flexi is vector based. so when you save an image in ps, its going to go to the document bounds, which is the artboard (hence the square.)

Ive run into this issue in illy too, the fix for that is to right click the image and hit unmask

 

[Kemble]

photoshop is a raster program - anything exported from it will be 'square' -- create image, bring into illustrator, create cutline, export as eps

"Create Cutline" How do I do this? Do I have to outline the entire thing? There is no simple way like in Flexi when I just hit "Make Contour Cut" white the image is selected?

 

[J Hill Designs]

no easy button. if you create the graphic in illustrator, its already vector, so you can expand strokes etc to create the cutline...

 

[bob]

Since the image is a bitmap, it will be rectangular.

To add a contour around the actual image itself in Flexi select the bitmap then invoke Bitmap>Make Transparent.

With the wand cursor select the color, I assume it's white but it doesn't have to be, surrounding your actual image. If there's more than one area hold the Shift key and select those additional areas. You can mess with the Tolerance value in the Design Control dialog to tighten or loosen the transparency.

When you get it the way you want it, press the green check button on the Design Control dialog.

Now you can do Effects>Contour Cut... and the contour will be placed around that area of the bitmap that is not transparent, which should be the actual image itself instead of the bounding rectangle.

 

[jayhawksigns]

Another option, it Photoshop, select your area you want contour cut, make it solid black and leave the weed out area white. Be sure that the overall size of this image, and the original is the same. Now open them both in Flexi and you can do a Vectorize - Bezier on the B&W image. Now you have a vector outline of your area and you can use that to create your cutline.

 

[Kemble]

Since the image is a bitmap, it will be rectangular.

To add a contour around the actual image itself in Flexi select the bitmap then invoke Bitmap>Make Transparent.

With the wand cursor select the color, I assume it's white but it doesn't have to be, surrounding your actual image. If there's more than one area hold the Shift key and select those additional areas. You can mess with the Tolerance value in the Design Control dialog to tighten or loosen the transparency.

When you get it the way you want it, press the green check button on the Design Control dialog.

Now you can do Effects>Contour Cut... and the contour will be placed around that area of the bitmap that is not transparent, which should be the actual image itself instead of the bounding rectangle.

I did this, the "white" area did become transparent, however the image is still square and there is no option to contour cut, contour cut is still greyed out

 

[Kemble]

Another option, it Photoshop, select your area you want contour cut, make it solid black and leave the weed out area white. Be sure that the overall size of this image, and the original is the same. Now open them both in Flexi and you can do a Vectorize - Bezier on the B&W image. Now you have a vector outline of your area and you can use that to create your cutline.

I took the image in photoshop, created a second layer, selected all the transparent areas, then did invert selection. Then I filled in the "image" with black. Deslected all and now I have a layer with my image filled in. Saved this image as an eps. I imported the eps into Fliexi, Vectorize - Bezier is greyed out

 

[J Hill Designs]

save the black contour image as a jpg or tiff...

 

[thewood]

Just to throw another option out there: you can create your cut path in Photoshop and Export Paths to Illustrator. Import the resulting vector path into Flexi and Arrange>Make Contour Cut.

There are several ways to do this. All involve creating a vector path and making it a contour cut.

 

[Kemble]

YAY !! I got it !!! Thank you all for all your idea's.

I ended up using the transparency method like bob suggested. I then rasterized the image with a mask. Then was able to make the contour cut out of the mask that it created.

 

[signguy 55]

This is how I vectorize a bitmap in Flexi. I run 7.5, I assume the details are the same.

Make sure you have fills turned off, so you're looking at the wireframe. This will help you see the steps are working.

1- Use magic wand > select white
2 Bitmap menu > invert selection
3 Bitmap menu > convert marquee to shape
4 - Now select both bitmap and mask
5 - Arrange menu > select mask

You may have to work with deleting the remaining box but you now have a mask and your original art. Hope this helps.

 

[LittleSnakey]

If you crated the image in photoshop,
1. make the background transparent in photoshop.
2. Save as a photoshop file, .ps
3. Import into Flexi
4. Select image
5. Select Contour cut tool, the apply with the check mark.

If you did not create the image and it does not have a transparent background the do it the way that you did with the majic wand.

 

[Kemble]

If you crated the image in photoshop,
1. make the background transparent in photoshop.
2. Save as a photoshop file, .ps
3. Import into Flexi
4. Select image
5. Select Contour cut tool, the apply with the check mark.

If you did not create the image and it does not have a transparent background the do it the way that you did with the majic wand.

WOW, I've never tried importing a .psd file into Flexi. This was the easiest and fastest way. TY very much for the info !!

 

[xxaxx]

Yeah just delete the background layer in pshop so it is showing transparency through and save as a psd file with layers ... then flexy can make cut lines for it with no converting to vector or drawing anything extra or any extra steps like that.