TheKid 29 Posted March 6, 2014 I was thinking of a way to give my daughter and son in law a birthday present since their day is the same. I started going thru my large library of pictures and found one I thought would work. This rascal was the devil to weed. I was using the only vinyl I had which was an exterior I'm using on a decal project. What type of vinyl would be best for this project. It will be framed as shown in an 8X10 landscape frame. I used PaintShop Pro to greyscale and to set brightness and contrast. I then imported into Inkscape and removed uneeded nodes. I cut thru SCALP on a 14" MH series cutter. What is the best way the next time I attempt this. I had to do quite a bit of photo editing before I imported into Inkscape. Any help, tips, comments welcome. -robert Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dawn's Design 403 Posted March 6, 2014 Don't really know what to tell you on the editing. One thing that I do is cut it in mirror image then stick it to the backside of the glass in the picture frame. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TheKid 29 Posted March 6, 2014 I thought about that or even putting it on the outside. I decided to just peel off the dark and cut it fit a frame. It would look cool kind of floating in the frame though. I've never done something like this nor have I seen any pictures of one done. I'm sure many have, just couldn't find an example of what to do. I could still put it on glass front or back. Since there is no print I could reverse it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Wildgoose 4,200 Posted March 6, 2014 Sounds to me like you went about it the same way I would have and I think the results look pretty good. It's tough to go from a picture to a vinyl silhouette without some strange areas here and there. As far as I know there is no easy button for this type of work. The only other thing I have ever done was trace in a few colors to get some more details. I use about 6 colors to start and then start cutting it down to 5, 4 and so on in the preview until it is something that gets the look I am after. There is almost always a lot of node editing after the trace and sometimes I have ended up starting all over again because I mess up the results by trying to consolidate the cut. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mercer57 243 Posted March 6, 2014 I was into scroll saw portraits for a long time and designed tons of patterns and know how to do it, but not good at explaining the process. Maybe do a search for scroll saw portrait pattern making also steve good has an awesome website http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/ lots of tips and vids. This software does the work for you: http://www.carvingtechnologies.com/coyote.aspx 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dawn's Design 403 Posted March 6, 2014 I did this of my son and his wife a few months back. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TheKid 29 Posted March 6, 2014 That looks fantastic Dawn. I'd have to go to a bigger cutter to do that. Is it stuck on the glass? My main problem is learning Inkscape. I've seen some amazing work done with it. I have problems with the simplest things such as how to connect two nodes together. A lot to learn and a lot to read. Getting there a step at a time. -robert Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dawn's Design 403 Posted March 6, 2014 I cut it in mirror and stuck it to the backside of the glass. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
joker 618 Posted March 7, 2014 Theres Dawns Showing off that work again....lol. I really like that Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cal 393 Posted March 7, 2014 Thanks Mercer57, and Dawn - that is nice work right there! Cal Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mercer57 243 Posted March 8, 2014 Link to how to make portrait patterns with gimp Share this post Link to post Share on other sites