Tuesday Tutorial | Die-cut Silhouette Handwriting with Caylee

Hey it's Caylee. One of my favourite things to do with my new Silhouette Portrait is cut out my own handwriting. It really adds a personal touch to projects.

 

Here's how you do it:

02

Write out your word or phrase on a piece of plain white paper with a thick pen, such as a Sharpie.

 

03.

If you have a scanner, scan in the image.

 

04

If you don't have a scanner, you can just use your smart phone or "big" camera. We don't need the quality to be great, we just need to get it onto the computer.

 

05

Drag the image into Photoshop and select each word with the Magic Wand Tool. Make sure to include the tittle (yep, that's what the dot about the i's and j's is called). If it is selecting more than just your text, lower the Tolerance. If it is selecting too little, increase it. To add tittles and other bits to the selection, hold down SHIFT when clicking.

 

06

Right click on the selection and choose Layer Via Copy. Repeat the selection process for each word, making sure that you're on the right layer for selection (usually Background).

 

07

Change your document size to the same as what you're wanting to print on. This makes it easier to see how it will turn out, especially if you're wanting to use the negative of the text. I turned mine into an A4 size paper

 

08

Rearrange your text to the way that you want it by moving each word layer.

 

09

Merge the layers once you're happy with the positioning.

 

10

Right click on this merged layer, and choose Blending Options.

 

11

Under Color Overlay, choose a black overlay at 100% opacity. This makes sure that the lines are better defined.

 

12

If you feel like your handwriting was too thin, you can give your text a Stroke. Make sure the Position is set to Outside, the Color is Black, and play around with the size.

 

13

Ta-dah. Hide your background layer to make it transparent and save it as a .png file.

 

14

Now open up Silhouette Studio. Choose the correct Page Settings.

 

15

Drag your saved .png image into the program and align it the way you want. I've aligned mine Center to Page.

 

16

Under the Trace tools, choose Select Trace Area and click and drag over your text.

 

17

Uncheck High Pass Filter, and play around with the threshold so that all your black text is now yellow and selected. Click Trace.

 

18

Click on the black part of your handwriting and delete it. You will be left with your handwriting in white with a red outline.

 

19

Choose the appropriate Cut Settings and adjust your blade accordingly. Send it to your Silhouette (eek - excitement !).

 

20

Watch as the most beautiful robotic noises and movements come from your Silhouette Cameo / Portrait.

 

21

You get a nice little negative of your writing.

 

22

As well as your own handwriting... but better.