Sihouette Designer edition

[BathBelle]

I bought my Cameo on Create and Craft's Pick of the Day a few weeks ago and DE was free with it.

Ruth

[DJG]

I bought my Cameo on Create and Craft's Pick of the Day a few weeks ago and DE was free with it.

Ruth

Ah I see

[Neries]

I bought the Design Edition upgrade from Graphtec in January. Alright I don't use or for that matter understand all the extra's but three I find really useful.

I really like that it will open svg files. I do use the cross hairs and rulers for positioning when using the drawing tools. The rubber seems to work better and I can use different sizes and a circle or straight line.

The downside is no information in the manual on the Designer Edition extra tools. No idea at all what the 'shear tool' would be used for.

[BathBelle]

I agree about the cross hairs. When I first opened it I thought "Ugh must get those off the screen, they're going to bug me" but now I find them really useful for positioning/selecting and I don't notice them the rest of the time.

Ruth

[dozyrosy]

I looked at the extra options and decided there would be enough there that I'd personally find useful for it to be worth me getting.

I like the additional functions for the knife tools - not the actual fancy cuts (though the serrated one might do for scallops..) - but the fact that I can curve my cuts.

I also appreciate being able to open svg files without having to go the dxf route, and I really like the undocumented option in a couple of earlier versions (1.9 and I believe v2.00) that also enables you to save as svg files too.

I've not yet used the shear option, but I can see that it's probably gpoing to be very handy when I'm drawing geometric shapes and need precise angles.

Rosemary

[Lucille]

I looked at the extra options and decided there would be enough there that I'd personally find useful for it to be worth me getting.

I like the additional functions for the knife tools - not the actual fancy cuts (though the serrated one might do for scallops..) - but the fact that I can curve my cuts.
Rosemary

The fancy cut knives won't do curvy cuts, it is a straight line or nothing

[dozyrosy]

The fancy cut knives won't do curvy cuts, it is a straight line or nothing

Oh knickers... And there was me thinking I might find a use for them!
Rosemary

[Lucille]

I can understand the screen shot showing the knife settings could be deceiving, sorry to disappoint.

[BathBelle]

Sorry I don't understand can you explain more? Are you talking about tracing JPEGs or a file of mixed cutting files?

Example: there is a craft magazine that does a free double page of digital images each month, which is great except they come all higgledy piggledy on the page (jpg download) So in order to use a single image you have to cut round it. You can't always do it with a rectangle or circle and crop it as they are all jumbled together. I have been known to spend an evening cutting them all apart so that if I want to use one of the images they are all ready for use. When I only had the straight knife it was a laborious job with single straight lines all round the image, now I can cut round it in one go with the freehand knife - not so neat but does the job.

Ruth

[Lucille]

Example: there is a craft magazine that does a free double page of digital images each month, which is great except they come all higgledy piggledy on the page (jpg download) So in order to use a single image you have to cut round it. You can't always do it with a rectangle or circle and crop it as they are all jumbled together. I have been known to spend an evening cutting them all apart so that if I want to use one of the images they are all ready for use. When I only had the straight knife it was a laborious job with single straight lines all round the image, now I can cut round it in one go with the freehand knife - not so neat but does the job.

Ruth

Ah, I see what you mean.

I don't know if this would help you any, but when I want to select an image or images from a collage of images, I use the Autotrace, get as close as I can with the trace box, but not worry if I pick up bits of surrounding images.

Do the trace and detach thing, then you should be able to grab the piece you want and drag it out of the way and cut and paste it into a new document, then if you use the undo function on the original you can repeat with any other images you want.

When you have finished save your traced images and close the jpeg without saving, then it's still good if you want something else at a later date.

[BathBelle]

I'll give that a try but I quite like the cutting/separating process!! Sad or what?

Ruth

[Lucille]

I'll give that a try but I quite like the cutting/separating process!! Sad or what?

Ruth

Not sad at all, I like cutting out decoupage with scissors so does that make us both sad