Turn an image into a file your Cricut or Silhouette can cut

A Cricut or Silhouette blade follows the outlines in the file. A PNG or a JPG has no outlines, only pixels, so something has to find the edges first, and what it finds is what gets cut.

Shapes, not pixels. Upload a PNG to Design Space and save it as a Cut image, and Cricut's own guide says it keeps only the outside silhouette as the cut path. The lines and colours inside it aren't cut. A traced SVG brings every outline with it, the holes in letters included.

One material per cut. The machine cuts one sheet at a time, so every colour of vinyl or iron-on is a cut of its own. Design Space splits an uploaded SVG into layers for that. A one-colour trace is for a single sheet; a colour trace is for layered work.

No background. A white or coloured background behind the artwork is a shape too, and the machine cuts it as a rectangle. If your image has one, turn on Remove background in Tracer before you download a one-colour trace.

A size you set. Tracer's SVG has proportions but no physical size, so Design Space and Silhouette Studio pick one on import. Set the real size on the canvas before you cut. A 12 x 12 in Cricut mat cuts up to 11.5 x 11.5 in.

Tracer exports SVG and, on Pro, DXF, EPS and PDF. Which one you need depends on the program and, for Silhouette, on its edition:

A DXF is one colour. Tracer writes it from a one-colour trace, with every shape on one layer. A colour trace downloads as SVG, EPS or PDF instead.

DXF size in Silhouette Studio. Tracer's DXF is in millimetres, but Silhouette says a DXF doesn't carry its size into Silhouette Studio. Set the size after you open it.

Tracer's colour styles split the image into four bands of brightness and fill each band with the image's own colour for it. Each colour is then a piece to cut from its own sheet. Colours of similar brightness land in the same band, though: a red and a blue of about the same lightness come back as one colour, on one layer. Check the trace before you cut, and two more things:

• —It is always four layers. A design in two or three colours comes back with near copies among the four. Hide or delete the ones you won't cut.
• —The layers are stacked. The lightest layer covers the whole design, and each darker one is smaller and sits on top of it. Cut as they are, the pieces go one on top of another. To cut each colour only where it shows, take the upper shape out of the lower one first: Slice in Design Space cuts overlapping shapes out of one another.

Stacked iron-on gets bulky, and not every kind takes another layer on top. Cricut says Everyday Iron-on is the one type that can be used as a base layer, and that nothing should go over Glitter Iron-on.

• —Pick the mat by material. Cricut's LightGrip mat is for office paper, thin vellum, light cardstock and vinyl; StandardGrip for heavy cardstock, patterned paper, permanent vinyl and iron-on; StrongGrip for glitter cardstock, leather, balsa wood and chipboard (Cricut).
• —Iron-on goes shiny side down, and mirrored. The shiny side is the carrier sheet, so it faces the mat and the blade cuts the matte side. Turn on Mirror before cutting, or the design reads backwards once it's pressed. Printable iron-on for dark fabrics is the exception: Silhouette says not to mirror it.
• —Adhesive vinyl isn't mirrored. It goes on face up, so cut it as it is. The exception is a decal on the inside of a window, read from outside: that one is cut in reverse.
• —Weed, then transfer. After cutting, lift away the parts you don't need with a weeding tool. Adhesive vinyl then moves to its surface on transfer tape; iron-on is pressed with its carrier sheet still on.

• —Uploading the PNG as a Cut image. Only its outside silhouette is cut. Trace it first, or use Print Then Cut if the design is meant to be printed; that needs an inkjet printer.
• —A rectangle around the design. The background was traced as a shape. Turn on Remove background before downloading, or hide that layer in Design Space.
• —Detail too fine to weed. Thin lines and narrow gaps cut fine and then tear when you weed. Look at the design at its real size before you cut, and simplify it if you wouldn't want to weed it.
• —Iron-on cut without Mirror. The design is pressed backwards, and the sheet is wasted.
• —An SVG for Silhouette Studio Basic. It won't open there. Basic opens DXF.