preparing the design

Design on a transparent canvas. Adjust your item to the desired size. I often copy the image to have spares.

Put a line or, my preference, a skinny rectangle that measures the horizontal of the entire set of images to be cut. It's OK to be a little wider but not smaller than the images it is covering. Input the exact length above the rectangle and group everything together.

Export the image

Export to desktop as a PNG file/Lanczos 3. Name it something easy to source later. In this case it is:

Cafe sign for Cricut.PNG

Connect to internet

Open Cricut Design Space

Have your printer and Cricut machine connected to your computer and turned on.

Select new project

then select upload (lower left) and upload the image to the Cricut software

Select "complex"

save as print then cut image

Select your image then "insert image"

Image will show in your design space project now.

Resize the image

Cricut has a 144 dpi resolution and will enlarge the typical 300 dpi image to around twice its actual size.

Select "more" at the top right of Design Space and you will see a dialog that shows current size and allows resizing to get what you intended. Make sure the padlock is on and input the horizontal size that is written above the slim rectangle we exported with the file.

Make It

It will now be placed on a standard cutting mat.

Send to printer

select your printer on the next screen and print. 

When the printer is finished

you will see a bit of "garbage around the edges of the image. This is intentional with this process. This garbage will be cut off in the Cricut. It helps the cutter to not leave any extra white space at the edges.

Attach the printed page to mat and cut it as usual

Thanks Rick!

I can feel the money drain on my pocket already!!!  Great tutorial!!!  Are you any good at robbing banks???

Enjoyed!  Have a good!

Robbing banks?

In my former life.

Great tutorial Rick!

I’ll add that you should calibrate your machine first if you haven’t already. You can find it in your left hand menu.

or you may end up with cuts that don’t line up with the prints. Like the print below.
 

after calibration

Attach to mat and ....

You said "Attach to mat and cut it as usual".

How precise do you need to be when attaching the printed material to the mat? Or is the cutter doing some sort of scanning to find the image on the page?

Thanks for all the effort you put into posting this.

Calibrate

Yes, exactly. Thanks Greg for adding that.

Chris,

When the Cricut starts its cutting procedure the first thing it does is search for the black registration lines around the artwork. It finds a spot on each line and takes measurements that it uses to orient itself. You do need to place the material to be cut reasonably accurately but there is about a quarter inch of leeway around the edges. I also add a little bit of room when placing the artwork in Design Space.

BTW, if you look at the post  When the printer is finished about 5-6 posts up you'll note that I didn't have the paper perfectly aligned to the mat's edge lines. All in all the machine is pretty user friendly.

Question and thanks

First, thanks a lot

my question.  What you designed n affinity has colors.  When you choose “print then cut” are you installing teh various color pens in teh cricut — and are the pens reproducing the color?  Or something else?

OK -- rick I got it now

I misunderstood "print then cut".

different Cricuts ?

Rick, 

you say you have a very basic Explore  machine. What is the difference in it and say the Explore 2 or even the maker series, besides maybe price? I have followed your posts and what you produce with the "basic" machine is fantastic. I realize your skill is likely is what makes your projects what they are, but for new comer, do you have any thoughts on a machine. I have all most jumped in but, the variety is confusing.

Thank you for any input.

Mel

Mel

Interesting you should ask that as I was just this morning trying to figure it out myself! I needed some replacement blades and in the process had to determine which blades fit which machines. I took a close look at my machine.....which wasn't easy as my little space has another project in progress that has got my Cricut and Printer hemmed into a corner and darn near impossible to get to. Anyway, to my surprise mine is an Explore One commonly just called an Explore. They have an Explore Air which can be used wireless (mine is accessed with a USB cable which I much prefer) and I believe a Cricut 2 which may have a more sophisticated blade driver (not totally sure on that) and the big Cricut Maker with a refined drive system and a new deep cut blade that I thought would be a much needed improvement. Oh, I forgot, one of the big differences in the different Explores is that mine only cuts, one of the newer Explores can cut and score I believe at same time and one can also draw depending on different tool holders etc.

 Confused? You're not alone. Me too.

 Back to the game changing top of the line Maker. When it was announced it was vaunted as a more powerful machine that could work more effectively with heavier fabrics and with it had a new x-acto type of blade that could cut thicker sheet materials like styrene. That's what got my attention. The explore needs a fresh blade and several passes to cut cut cleanly through .020 styrene. So I planned and saved to get the Maker as soon as it was available. Oh, a problem....the Maker arrived but the special blade was not ready yet. It will be out soon said they.....wrong.....it was at least a year until they worked out the unspecified problems and released the holder and blades. That was a while back and for a long time I tried to find any modelers that were using one so I could get some feedback. Crickets (not a mis-spelling) Crickets as in silence, nada, zilch. So I just keep puttering around on my little Explore One. Happy as a clam and blissful in my ignorance but I sure would like to talk to a modeler to see if the maker is worth the extra coin.

 The disclaimer

 Since I just was skimming the info today to get the correct blades for my little unit all the model type info was just collateral damage in my search..........undoubtedly some of it is incorrect... To me the basic Cricut does what I need but just a little more power would be helpful. I'm pretty sure they all use the same basic Design Space software and resolution. The bells and whistles of the more expensive ones are for the "crafters" their target market. Us modelers probably account for less than 1% of their sales. 

Thank you Rick.  That helped

Thank you Rick. 

That helped a lot. Further question. Where you use your own software to design your projects, is it necessary to have a subscription to use the cricut? I have briefly looked at the machines some time back, but did not like the idea of having the apparent need  to maintain a monthly fee. My use at that time was more in line with RC planes and designing / cutting trim covering for the planes. Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but I never was clear on that subject. 

Mel

Mel

The software where I design my projects (Affinity Photo) is not a Cricut product. As long as I have been using Cricut it imports PNG files that I make in Affinity without problem.

Cricut......no subscription fees unless you want to use their patterns and geegaws for your scrapbooking (trust me, you don't). That's the kind of stuff they make their profit on from the crafters.They do make it sound like you need that subscription to use their machine but it just isn't the case for modelers who use stand alone graphics programs.

 You sign up and Cricut software recognizes your machine's serial number and the website loads up your projects and all your uploaded files. As far as I know you have to access everything via the internet but that may have changed and I'm behind the times, but that's how I do it.