Liane Van Harn Designs: COMBINING 2 IMAGES TO CREATE A CUTTING FILE

I was totally inspired by Glenda Viljoen new Penelope Dee "Go see do" range of paper and embellishments and then I think most of you who know me well, know I just love love love doing Travel layouts and just love love love Tim Holtz Globe and now Glenda has done one using the Map of Africa, so I thought, wait a minute, what if I want my globe bigger? What if I can create my own using different images will it work?

Well the answer is below...you tell me!

Step 1:

I found a globe on the Internet and traced it using the "Trace" function. If you haven't traced yet and need a recap, please go look at my previous lesson on Trace and cut for beginners

This is what my trace looked like after I separated the original image from the trace.

Step 2:

Now I traced the Map of Africa in a circle using the trace function once again.

Step 3:

Using the "Scale" icon size both the Globe and the Map of Africa so that they are the same same. In this instance, I clicked on the globe and saw the height and width, made a note of it and then I clicked on the Map of Africa and sized it the same as the Globe. Remember you might need to "Uncheck" the "Lock Aspect" otherwise you might not get them to be exactly the same size.

Step 4:

Now this step isn't necessary, but for me it just makes it easier to see the different colours while working on the next few steps, so using the "Paint bucket" i.e. "Open the fill colour window", I coloured the Map of Africa in red and the globe in Black.

Step 5:

Now click on the "Align" window and highlight both the Map of Africa and the Globe and click on "Center". This will now align both the Globe and the Map directly on top of each other.

Step 6:

This is now a very important step, if you don't do this it will not work properly.

Click on the Globe ONLY and then right click > Bring to Front.

What this does is make sure that the Globe is sitting on top of the Map of Africa. You can also see how this helps with the colour as if the Globe was at the back you wouldn't see all the Globe lines.

The image below is CORRECT

The image below is INCORRECT

Step 7:

Now click on the "Modify" window. Highlight both layers i.e: Globe and the Map of Africa and then click on "Subtract All". It will look like nothing has happened, but before you panic, click on the top "Globe" layer and drag it off as per the 2nd picture below

Step 8:

After dragging off the Globe you will be left with the Map of Africa and the grid lines.

We are almost done!

Step 9:

You now need to create an outside circle of the Map of Africa to join the cut file together, and to do this you will use the "Offset" icon.

Click on the "Globe" then click on the "Offset" icon as highlighted in blue below. You will see the "Offset" window open up on the right hand side and then if you click "Offset" you will see an outer circle appear, now before you click anywhere you can adjust the distance by clicking on the slider of the up and down arrows which will either make the offset you have created bigger or smaller, when you happy with the distance, click "Apply"

Now right click > release compound path

you will notice every little square and circle has a block around it. If you click in the free area and then click on the outer circle you can now move this circle to around the Map of Africa globe you have created. Centre the Map of Africa inside the outer circle and the

right click > make a compound path

Step 10:

Now click on the Eraser tool on the left hand side and then clean up any little pieces that are floating as they will just waist your time when you cut.

When I clean up, I enlarge and delete as you can see on the left hand side of the globe, where I am deleting those little lines that are pointless.

Step 11:

After you have used the Eraser tool, you will once again need to select everything and the

right click > make a compound path

this is because the minute you erase an area from a joined cut file, the software automatically breaks up all the individual cut files so it can delete it.