Opening, Importing and Saving Images This tutorial will help you to become familiar with how to open, import and save the various file types that the Make The Cut! (MTC!) software supports. You can find these options either under the File menu on the menu bar or on the Main bar under the tab sections. I will explain both methods as we move through this tutorial. Section 3: Other File Extension Types: MTC! Software supports several graphic file extensions. Other than the TTF s and SVG s mentioned in the earlier sections, it also supports.bmp,.png,.jpg,.jpeg,.tiff,.emf and.gif. To see this list, click on the Custom Shapes tab in the Main Properties box, click on the Silhouette button (image of a ladies head) and this will then bring up an Open box. Click on the Files of type: drop-down arrow. This will display the graphic files that can be used with MTC! Illustration 4.24 If you are looking for a particular graphic to save and cut out in MTC! The following steps will show you how to find, import, create and save a project to cut in MTC! Or you may already have these file extension graphics already saved on your computer, this section will also show you how to use them. Just skip over the first part showing how to find the graphic. Finding a Graphic to Create and Cut To find an image use your internet search engine. For this tutorial I am looking for a cartoon image. I have typed this in my search engine and it will then give me sites that I can search through to find the exact image I am looking for. 1
Illustration 4.25 Once you have found the image you are looking for, you will then want to save it to your computer. I would suggest creating a folder in your My Documents folder to store your graphic images. This will make it easy to find and retrieve when you want to use them. To save the image, right click on the image, this will bring up a drop-down menu box. Click on Save Picture As this will open a Save as box. This method allows you to save it as a.gif or a.bmp image. Illustration 4.26 Another method of saving, so that you have other file type options to save the image as, would be to click on Copy instead of the Save Picture As option. Then paste the image into your Paint program or another type of photo imaging software that you may have. This example, I am using the Paint program that comes already installed on most computers. The Paint program can be accessed by clicking on your Start button, All Programs, Go to the top of the Menu to Accessories and the drop down box should display the Paint program in the list. Illustration 4.27 2
After you have pasted the image into the program, click on File, Save as, then you can choose the file type extension that you want to use for the image. Illustration 4.28 Importing the Image into MTC! Now that your image is saved to your computer, we want to open it in MTC! to use it. Open the MTC! software program. Click on the Silhouette button on the Custom Tab. An Open image for tracing box will appear. Click on the drop-down arrow to find the folder you have stored the image in. You can single click on the file name and it will appear in the preview box on the right side of the box. Once you have the image, click on Open. Illustration 4.29 Creating the Image Using the Trace Image After you have clicked on the Open button, the image will now be displayed in the Trace Image box. The default program brings the image in with a 127 as the Threshold amount, see Illustration 4.30. Using the Threshold will help you to clean up and clear up the image before you place it on your mat. You will have a range of 1-255 to use to adjust the image as needed. Some images you will need to increase the number above 127 others you will need to decrease the number or it could be perfect at the default of 127. Experiment with your options. You want to make sure you have nice clean lines so that the image will cut correctly. 3
Illustration 4.30 Now I will show an example of how the Threshold can improve an image. If you will notice in Illustration 4.30 which used the default of 127, there is a blank area where the overalls strap should be to hold the bone in place. It is missing. In Illustration 4.31, the first image, I have decreased the Threshold to 80. You can now see that the strap is visible. In the second image, I increased the Threshold to 150 and if you will notice the strap is again missing. Illustration 4.31 Now I want to experiment with the different numbers between 127, which does not show the image, to 80 which does show the image, to get the best image to work with. I will continue to either increase or decrease my Threshold between these two numbers until I get the effect I am looking for. 4
Illustration 4.32 Once you are satisfied with your image, click on the Accept button to place it on your mat. Illustration 4.33 shows three different file extension that this image was created with to show any difference that may appear with the different ways the image was saved. All were created with the same 120 Threshold. As you will notice, there is really no difference. Illustration 4.33 Now that the image is placed on the mat, you will then perform the Shape Magic functions to prepare the image for cutting. Use Select All then Break and Split your pieces. You will now need to clean up the unnecessary pieces (dots in the picture-that would cause holes in the cut) by clicking on the Shift-Tab keys through the image and deleting any part that should not be there or that you don t want cut. See Illustration 4.34 to see how a dot would display. You can generally tell these by the dot and cross image that is over it. You want to hit your delete key to remove this part of the image. To click on a specific section, hold down the Shift key so that the part does not resize itself and click on the part of the image you need. 5
Illustration 4.34 As you are going through the Shift-Tab steps you can then color the different parts of the layers as you desire. An easy way to do this is each time you Shift-Tab to another section, look at the Color under the Visualization box on the Objects Property box. This will show you the color of that section. If it is still blue, in this example that means that section has not been colored. Click on the color square to bring up the color options to choose from and choose the color you want for that section. Illustration 4.35 Illustration 4.36 shows a completed image, with coloring and with the background layer separated. This image is now ready to cut. You can now move the like colors to various locations on your mat as you place different colored paper on the actual cutting mat. Wherever you place the image pieces on the virtual mat is where you will need to place your cardstock/paper on the actual cutting mat. 6
Illustration 4.36 Saving the Image Now that the image is completed, it can now be saved to your My Documents. This can be saved as an.mtc file by clicking on file then save as, name your file and it then saves with the.mtc extension. Or it can be saved as a.svg file by clicking on Edit on the file menu and then export To SVG. Remember to save the image to your My Documents folder and not directly in the MTC! software program. Illustration 4.37 I hope this tutorial will help you begin to explore all of the ways this function can add to your creative project ideas. For more information on how to use this function, please visit the Make The Cut! Forum website: http://make-the-cut.com/forum/ 7