Makerspace Equipment Guides: Silhouette Cameo 4

Getting started with the Silhouette Cameo 4

Silhouette Cameo 4 Parts Map

Place vinyl, shiny side up, on sticky mat.

Line up the mat with the grey guidelines.

Press LOAD.

When your project has finished cutting, click UNLOAD, wait for machine to eject the vinyl and mat, and remove vinyl and mat.

Open the Silhouette Studio software.

Select file/image from Library tab in upper right corner.

This will cause the image to open in the software in a new window. 

Click on the image. You can resize by inputting specific dimensions in the top toolbar, or by dragging the corner of the image. 

Drag image to the top left corner of the template. This preserves vinyl because it will cut out of the top left corner. 

In order for the Silhouette to cut an image file, it must trace the image. A raster image (JPEG, PNG, etc.) is simply a collection of pixels. In order for Silhouette Studio to recognize the image as lines and shapes, we must turn it into a vector image. We do this by using the Trace Image function in Silhouette Studio.

Select File>Open in the Silhouette software

Select your desired image file. 

Adjust image to desired size (see box above for resizing instructions).

For the following image, we want to cut out the bird silhouettes:

Select the TRACE tool from the right side of the window tool bar. (Hint: It looks like a butterfly!)

Click on SELECT TRACE AREA

Drag box over image, which will highlight areas for cutting in yellow.

Adjust THRESHOLD to select only the areas you want cut.

In the above image, we changed the THRESHOLD from 50% to 30%, eliminating the extra yellow at the top of the image and leaving only the geese. 

When image is highlighted as desired, hit TRACE or TRACE OUTER EDGE

TRACE will trace internal and external lines 

TRACE OUTER EDGE will only trace the outside edge of the image

Now, you will see red lines indicating the trace. The red lines are what the Silhouette will cut. 

1. Click Send in the top right corner.
2. Under TOOL 1, select material.  For this project, select Vinyl-Glossy. 
3. Click SEND at the bottom of the screen.