Craft Edge

When I have purchased an image say on etsy and pull it up and trace it in SCAL it looks great. When I go in to add my stencil bridge the image starts to change....become less clear. I don't know how to say it exactly but I'm sure anyone who has experienced this knows what I'm talking about. The sharpness of the image or even letters starts to decrease. Please if I'm doing something wrong or if anyone has figured out a way that this wont happen please let me know. I love designing my own stencils but currently will be in a time crunch.

This is due to an automatic simplification process that helps reduce nodes as changes are made to a shape. When using certain functions over and over on the same selection, you can begin to see your shapes "melt". There's a setting you can change. Go to Edit>Preferences and click on the Edit tab. The setting is called Auto Simplify Shapes. Uncheck that box, click on OK. You may need to restart SCAL... I can't recall. But that should fix the problem.

If your design is then cutting WAY too slowly due to too many nodes, select the design and go to Path>Simplify. There you can reduce the nodes by adjusting the setting and then checking to make sure the integrity of your design remains the same.

I have tried that SandyMcC but it didn't help decrease the distortion.

Are you on a PC or a Mac? What version of SCAL are you on? And I need the full version number... under Help>About Sure Cuts A Lot (on a Mac under the Sure Cuts A Lot menu at the top). If you have that setting turned off, this shouldn't be happening so maybe it's a bug.

I'm on a PC version 5.012 I have checked for updates and it says that i'm all updated

The Check for Updates function has never worked... not sure why but the ONLY way to actually know you're up to date is to go to the web site link below and just update. Even what it says at the web site isn't usually correct. I think the current version is 5.019 but I also haven't checked in a week or two so it could be past that now.

http://www.craftedge.com/download/download.html

I actually don't think this will solve the issue because I haven't seen this listed as a bug by anyone until now. Another thing you can do is apply Object>Break Apart to your design. Then apply Object>Merge to any shapes that need the internal part re-attached. For example, let's say I have the word "Bob" that I'm stenciling. I would first try Object>Ungroup to see if that makes the 3 letters individually selectable. If not, then I do the Break Apart. At this point, the internal part of each of those letters is separate from the external and you can't stencil them. So, for each letter you would need to reselect the internal shapes with the external and then apply Merge.

Thus, with each letter separate when I apply the Stencil Bridge it won't affect the others because they're different, unselected shapes. Hope this makes sense.

The Check for Updates function has never worked... not sure why but the ONLY way to actually know you're up to date is to go to the web site link below and just update. Even what it says at the web site isn't usually correct. I think the current version is 5.019 but I also haven't checked in a week or two so it could be past that now.

http://www.craftedge.com/download/download.html

I actually don't think this will solve the issue because I haven't seen this listed as a bug by anyone until now. Another thing you can do is apply Object>Break Apart to your design. Then apply Object>Merge to any shapes that need the internal part re-attached. For example, let's say I have the word "Bob" that I'm stenciling. I would first try Object>Ungroup to see if that makes the 3 letters individually selectable. If not, then I do the Break Apart. At this point, the internal part of each of those letters is separate from the external and you can't stencil them. So, for each letter you would need to reselect the internal shapes with the external and then apply Merge.

Thus, with each letter separate when I apply the Stencil Bridge it won't affect the others because they're different, unselected shapes. Hope this makes sense.