Problem with PNG image.

[Bikeracer]

I have got an image made in Photoshop at 300 dpi, saved it as a PNG file. Imported it into Scal5 and want to do my cutting lines, the problem is that the image is blurred and curved edges are jagged, text is blurred and plain lines are blurred to the point that to put a cutting line on would only be a best guess option.

The image is of some stone railway arches to print and cut out.

I tried a trace but there are some 38,000 plus nodes as if every stone in the image has a lot of nodes and it all makes for a very dark image. This image is not very complicated, nearly all straight lines with two curved arches.

I just feel I'm missing a step somewhere because I used the same image years ago in signcut without a problem.
I've looked at the image using preview and it's completely clear with no blurring and all lines are sharp.

I'll try and attach the file, it's A4 size. Can only upload the PNG file, tried to upload the Scal file but it won't go, perhaps too big.

Allan

[Gigi]

Hi Allan -

First of all, if you want to upload a cut file, you either have to upload the svg file or put the Zip the SCUT file and upload. For whatever reason, the forum software sees the SCUT file as a virus and wont upload it - but that's how you get around it.

So the file that you uploaded, do you need the entire thing traced? 300 DPI is not a very high resolution as far as clarity and quality is concerned. How did you try a trace?

I did not import it first. I did trace image and then the trace box opened up. Then I chose your image that I downloaded (it imports very small - about 2 x 1.5 inches so that is part of the problem) and the lines are very faint in the rectangles. And it is tracing a lot of the text that doesn't need to be traced - which I can break apart and take out - but it seems like the file is not clean. It is definitely not coming into the program as an A4 size. And it is not super clean when I view it in preview or on the screen - there are crooked lines. I had to zoom in to see what exactly you had. Much better when I can zoom in and see it!!

My curved lines are smooth, but some of the straight lines are jagged. It's just not a clean image to trace.

You said you used the image before, but then you said you were making it in Photoshop so maybe you did something differently than before? Do you have the original image that you had no problems with? And can you be clear about what you are trying to trace and what you are not. I assume you do not want the text within the lines traced. But do you want the individual lines inside the boxes cut or just the outside?

Is there a reason that your straight buttress lines (using those as an example as you have others as well) extend over the lines? It would be cleaner if the lines stopped at the point of intersection as the trace is seeing those extensions as separate things to trace. I have tried several times and cannot get a clean trace - but I get nowhere close to the nodes you have. Once I had 300 and once I had about 1360 - not sure how you are getting so many. I tried single color and monochrome tracing - monochrome is usually the best and since it is picking up everything on the page you are getting things traced that shouldnt be. I know I am being redundant.

I would work on darkening the lines in the file and cleaning it up first. And a blackout trace will give you the best results, but will not cut the lines within the boxes - however you could separate those to get cleaner cuts.

Here is what I get when I trace - showing it in the tracing pop-up and in preview - that's why I say it needs some work, imho.

Not sure I am helping - just giving you feedback. Have you tried saving it as a jpg to see if that makes a difference? And I would separate the rectangles so you can do a blackout trace and eliminate some of the inside text. You can also, once you get a good trace, close the print layer, break apart the cut file and delete the tracings of the of the text so you wont be cutting the text. That's why a blackout trace would be better/easier, but you still have text and images outside of the cut images so there will be some cut outlines that you will need to delete....

I did this quickly - would work on a better image first and try again. I still dont know how you got 38,000 nodes, I was nowhere near that no matter how many times I tried or what I did.....

[Bikeracer]

Gigi,

Thanks very much for the long and detailed reply.

The original which starts in PDF format goes through Photoshop to cut and paste individual parts onto an A4 size file at 300 dpi. Something I've literally done dozens of times before and I'm wondering if because it's such a long time since I last did it that I'm missing something in the image processing.

I did send the 300 dpi A4 image but it seems that it is much reduced by the web to the normal 72 dpi.

The extended cutting lines are there because the designer does these for people to cut with a hobby knife or similar. Doing these was the original reason I bought a Silver Bullet.
Unfortunately I don't have any of the original PNG files I did that I used at the time.

I did try a trace, thats when I got the huge node count and when I put "show nodes" the arches were just a solid mass of nodes, I'm not particularly bothered by that because I can put my own cut lines on, but the blurred image to put them on is unworkable for me.

Other png images open just fine in Scal so I'm going to go back and see if I can find what's going wrong in my image processing.

Anyway thanks once again for your interest and help, when/if I get it sorted I'll post back here.
Screen shots hopefully show the fuzziness of the image to try and put cut lines on.

Allan

[Bikeracer]

Getting round it a bit now.
Contacted Craftedge and reply was that Scal basically only produces a low resolution image on screen regardless of resolution input, so no help there with my issue.
Imported a PDF which does stay as a crisp image but some information was missing from imported image.

Inkscape to the rescue.
Import PDF into Inkscape and export straight to Scal and I get a crisp image that stays crisp regardless of magnification with nothing missing.
Still got to try things, but I might just put all the cut lines in using Inkscape and then export to Scal for cutting, this is what I used to do for Signcut anyway. Just got to get up to speed with with it now I hope. Still a few things to check.

Edit three hours later........It all now seems to be coming together at last and hopefully normal service will be resumed.

Allan

[Gigi]

Thanks Allan for sharing. I didn't know that about the resolution. I have traced a lot of images and none were distorted so I had no idea that higher resolution items would be negatively affected. I'm sorry. I would have thought that the PDF straight into SCAL would have been the answer. Am glad you figured out a workaround.

I hope that things run smoothly for you now and you can achieve the results you want. Please keep us posted.

[Bikeracer]

Importing a PDF straight into Scal does work better but nowhere near as good as opening it in Inkscape and exporting it to Scal.

After about three hours messing about and making mistakes in Inkscape I'm now a lot more confident it's the way to go for me. I find the node editing is a lot more precise and very much more predictable than Scal. One of the things I dislike about Scal is the fact that every cut line puts another layer on and I was getting literally dozens of layers, a very frustrating experience when trying to get a line to show nodes and then actually getting them selected to edit.

There is very little to no degradation with magnification in normal use in Inkscape and I find it's extremely easy to put a cut line that is in the middle of a line drawn in an image, just a lot more precision which suits what I'm trying to do.
Still a lot to learn though but I'm getting there. I'm not bashing Scal, but just saying that Inkscape works better and less clunky for me.

Screen shots slightly blurry but actual image is a lot better, the red cutting line for the SB is in the middle of the actual drawn cutting line.

Allan

[Gigi]

Thanks for sharing. Will be interesting in seeing the finished product.