How to turn any picture into a Silhouette Cameo file

I love my Silhouette Cameo but more so since I discovered how to turn any photo into a cutting file. This not only saves me money on buying designs from the Silhouette Store but also on creating unique personal designs.

I find for cutting choosing designs with simple lines such as colouring pages works best, but you can also scan drawings or handwritten quotes.

1. Download or scan picture and save as jpeg or similar file
2. On Silhouette Studio go to 'File' and select 'Open' Go into the folder where your image is stored
3. Go to 'Files of type' and select 'All Files'. Every file in that folder will now be shown
   
4. Click on image and it will now appear on your Silhouette Studio page
   
5. Select the 'Trace' tool its along the top menu on right hand side (the grey square with the blue and yellow shape on) and the trace menu will appear at the right hand side of page
   
6. Click on 'Select Trace Area' and form area over your design
   
7. Now click 'Trace' from the right hand menu, this will form a cutting outline of your design
8. Use pointer curse to click on image and move to side of page, you will then be left with your cutting image and your original image as separate parts.
   
9. Click on original image so that it is highlighted in a box and press delete button on keyboard
   
10. You will now just be left with your cutting file
    
11. You can now add this as your own design in your cutting library by selecting 'File', 'Save As' and then clicking 'Save to library...'
    
12. This is now your own design to use as you do any other design on your Silhouette

Tips

I always zoom into my image before saving to my library to fine tune, you can delete, edit any lines that you may think are too fussy or smooth over design.

You will also notice that in the trace menu there are other options such as trace outer edge, just have a play and see which works best with the design you want.

I will be adding many more tutorials like this regarding Silhouette Cameo, I do as a step by step as I always found it difficult to keep up with the videos while I learning these techniques. Please leave me comments as to if you like these, or what future features you would like me to cover

Loves ya Becky x