Preparing a simple path for the laser cutter.

One of the most basic things you can do with the laser cutter is trace an outside path of a shape to be cut out from sheet material. Like the previous posting on laser cutting please speak to your friendly technician to advise you on the use of appropriate materials.

You will also need the line you draw saved at a specific colour and width, again check with the technician who will be running the job.

This method shown below is to draw the path freehand, using the Pencil Tool. This is a basic drawing tool that will automatically place Anchor Points at regular intervals. The downside is that it is not very accurate a drawing method and for accuracy you will need to edit and tidy up any lines afterwards.

1. Place the image you want to trace by using File, Place... and select the image.

2. Before you place the image you can select the checkbox allowing you to add the file as a Template.
This will lock the image, dim it slightly and create a new layer for you to draw into in one go.

Depending on the original size of the image you place you might need to resize it to make it bigger or smaller. If you do you will need to unlock this first in the Layers Panel. Re-lock it once you have made any adjustments as you don't want to draw on this layer or have it move.

3. With your new layer selected select the Pencil Tool and start to draw around your image.
You will probably find it quite difficult to draw an accurate line with the Pencil Tool and the line will look very shaky. It will appear this way until you release the mouse button at which point the line will smoothen out and look better.

4. The line will probably need editing so that it is in the correct position, ready for cutting.
You can redraw the line to change it but first you will need to check a couple of settings for the Pencil Tool.

5. Double Click on the Pencil Tool. This will open the Pencil Tool Options. Make sure Keep Selected and Edit Selected Paths are checked.

6. With the path you have just drawn, click and drag to redraw a new line. This will replace the original one. This can produce unpredictable results sometimes so be ready to Undo and try again. Reducing the Fidelity can help here.

7. If you need still smoother lines you can use the Smooth Tool which is found by click holding on the Pencil Tool or if you already have the Pencil Tool selected by holding down the Alt key.

Each time you draw over the existing path the line will become smoother.

8. Depending on the complexity of your shape you can edit this line as you go using the Direct Selection Tool or using the Pen Tool.

You will also need to think about making sure your lines are joined together and continuous ready for the laser cutter to follow. Use this blog entry for more info.

An easier way to draw. The Pencil Tool.

The Pencil Tool in Adobe Illustrator allows you to draw freehand paths that you can edit later on.
Some if not most will find this method of drawing easier that using the Pen Tool. The downside is that the line you end up with will need refining and editing to make it more accurate. There are settings for this tool that you can tweak to make life easier for yourself. You will also find that if you are drawing using a Wacom Graphics Tablet instead of mouse, the results will be better already.

The Pencil Tool (shortcut N) draws a line where you drag the cursor and will add Anchor Points automatically along its length.

This line will usually need to be edited and refined using the Direct Selection Tool (shortcut A)

Hidden under the Pencil Tool is the Smooth Tool which will smooth the line you have just drawn with each pass. You can also access the Smooth Tool by holding down the Alt key when you have the Pencil Tool selected. This saves you time by not having to switch between one tool and the other.

If you double-click on the Pencil Tool you get access to the Pencil Tool Options. Here you can set the Fidelity and Smoothness of the line you draw. The higher the Fidelity, the closer your line is to your original line which creates more Anchor Points and the lower the Fidelity the fewer Anchor Points and the straighter  your line. Smoothness controls how much smoothing is applied to the line once you have drawn your line. The higher the value the soother the line and the lower the value the closer to the original line.
Experiment with these settings to get your preferred results.

Keep Selected and Edit Selected Paths can be helpful also. Keep Selected will keep the path selected once you have completed your line and if you have Edit Selected Path enabled drawing over the line a second time will change the path.

Using Live Trace to prepare for the laser cutter

The laser cutter needs to a path to cut along and it is Adobe Illustrator you use to make that path.
By using Illustrator you can make a path that is accurate and in exactly the right position but there is some preparation that needs to be done first.

The image you start with makes a big diference to how much work you have to do in editing or tidying up the result. The better the quality of the original, the better the tracing. A low resolution image from the internet will trace badly, not have enough detail and require you to tidy-up or redraw missing parts. It may help if open the image in Photoshop first to increase the contrast making the image easier to trace.

Important! This process is one small step in preparing your artwork for the laser cutter. It is important that you speak to the technician who will be helping you run the actual job to advise you on material suitability, time, availability etc. Basically can it be done as I expect?


1. Place your image into Illustrator using File>Place... and selecting the image from your computer.

2. With the image selected, open the Tracing Presets and Options (a small down pointing arrow) and select the Tracing Options...

3. Selecting this will open the following dialogue box. Here you can adjust settings according to the image you are using and the result you require. In preparing your image for use on the laser cutter you might want to start by duplicating the settings shown ensuring you are tracing Stokes and not Fills.

4. Depending on the size and resolution of the image it will process and show the result.
You can't edit the tracing until you have clicked on the Expand button.

5. The result you get might contain a number of different stroke widths and the laser cutter will need a single width line to follow, it will also make your editing task easier to see. With all the paths selected click on the Stroke Weight drop-down and select a small point size. This example is highly detailed and would not be suitable as it would burn away most of the material in the process. Again, speak to your friendly local technician for advice.

6. You will now need to spend some time deciding what parts to delete, what parts to keep and how to make a path that is suitable for use on the laser cutter.

If you double-click on the tracing with the Selection Tool (black arrow) you will enter Isolation Mode. With this mode you can edit individual parts inside the grouped object. You will know that you are in Isolation Mode by the grey bar that appears above your image. To exit, press esc on your keyboard or click on the left pointing arrow in the grey bar.

Fabric prints online

This looks interesting. Spoonflower, based in the US but will ship internationally and stock nine different types of fabric. What a good idea, I'm might give it a go myself.

Create seamless patterns online

Colourlovers.com has a nice page where you can create seamless auto-repeating patterns and let the rest of the community colourise them for you. As well as other colour related info.

Polaroid effect in Photoshop

Here are two different ways of creating a faux Polaroid effect using Photshop.
Polaroid 1
Polaroid 2
And here are some frames, you just need to remove the black inner and place your image behind.

Drawing without the Pen Tool

I'd recommend you watch this Lynda.com tutorial on drawing without using the Pen tool if you are having difficulty getting to grips with it. It is quite lengthy but worth watching from start to end.

Remember to access this via your UniHub login to get the whole chapter.