Hello! This is a tutorial on how to convert any image into a vector cutout so it can be laser cut.

You will need to use Adobe Photoshop, or any other image editing software and Adobe Illustrator.

The first thing you need is to pick an image. Since we are going to make a very clean cutout from it we need it to be in black and white (not grayscale). This process also works with colored or grayscaled images but it may not look as good as it should. So if you are going to use a image that isn't black and white you should edit it first in Photoshop until you get a clear image of what you would like to cut.

 

I am using a scanned image from a drawing I made some years ago.

Your image should be larger than 900 pixels. If the image is too small the details could be lost in the process and large images retain most of their original details. The resolution could vary from 150 to 300 Pixels/Inch, it doesn't make a big difference as long as you stay in that range.

 

To see an image's size in Photoshop go to Image - Image Size.

When your image is ready save it as usual, I saved mine as a .jpg

 

Then open Illustrator and go to File - New to make a new file.

Set the number of artboards to 1 and choose the size of the document you want your image to be laser cut.

Drag your image from where you saved it (mine is in the desktop) into the artboard you just created.

Then adjust its size to fit into the position you want it to be cut. It doesn't matter if the white space surrounding it sticks out of the artboard, as long as the silhouette you want to cut stays inside.

Once it is in position press Enter.

Then select the image. New options will appear on the menu, one of them is called Image Trace and next to it is a small triangle. If you click on the triangle there will appear different tracing options, these options convert your image into vectors. Each one varies in number of colors and attention to detail. The one we need to use is Black and White Logo.

Now your image has been converted into vector shapes but Illustrator still recognizes it as a unit. What we will do is select it again and a new option called Expand will appear on the top menu, click it.

After this we will ungroup it twice (I don't know why Illustrator puts the vectors inside two groups but it usually does.) Right click the group and select Ungroup twice.

Now we have all the pieces separated. Now we need to erase the white pieces and keep the black ones, which are the ones that will be cut.

 

To make this process faster select one of the white pieces then go to Select - Same - Appearance or Select - Same - Fill Color, this will select all the white ones, then just press Delete and they will be gone.

Now we have only the pieces we are going to cut. You can delete the ones you don't want or modifiy them. Remember that the pieces that aren't connected to other areas will fall out once they're cut and may get lost in the process. Also pieces that are too thin may be burnt out by the laser cutting machine so keep them at least of 1 or 2 mm of width.

 

Once you're ready we need to adapt these vectors so that the folks at the laser cut machine can read them easily. Select all the vectors, then on the Fill and Stroke option on the bottom part of the toolbar select the tiny black and white button.

 

Then change the fill color to none by clicking first on the fill square (the big white one) and then the white box with a red diagonal.

 

Then change the stroke color by double clicking on the stroke square (the big black one). Usually red means "cut."

This is how your document should look like once its ready to be laser cut. Save it as a illustrator file and take it to your local laser cut machine.

This is a rendering of how my final result should look like:

I hope you find this useful!
Cheers!
Alejandro Ram'irez B.