Sorry I didn’t have a chance to post for several days. I was at the Great American Scrapbooking Convention in Arlington, Texas! It was lots of fun and the best part is meeting my customers! I taught 14 students in private or semi-private classes and one of the favorite items was definitely the On Arc with Rotation feature. I decided to make a quick video for my blog so that everyone can start using this very cool design feature! Enjoy!
Today, I was asked about the purpose of Trim and Extend in the Polyarc editing window in KNK Studio. Well, these two functions are VERY cool… when they work! I have found simple cases in which they serve their intended purpose which is to trim (shorten) paths to meet at their intersection OR to extend (lengthen) two paths to intersect.
I created a quick video (sorry, no audio) TrimandExtend a while back to show a customer how these functions work and you can download the same Trim and Extend Samples file I’m using in the video from Trim and Extend Samples. Note in the video that I’m simply left clicking once on each path as shown. In the second part of the video, I found that I needed an extra node on that triangular path for the trim to work. And I needed to convert it to a polyarc, as the polygon editing window doesn’t contain Trim and Extend functionality. Anyhow, while these functions work perfectly in these particular simple samples, you may get some weird results when you try using it in other situations! But you can also resort to other methods to achieve the exact same results! 🙂
The only problem with auto-tracing clipart for a print and cut (and this is true in all of the vector programs I’ve tested), you often get the tracing too far to the outside of the image. Thus, when you cut your printed image, there ends up being white edges showing here and there. Not a good thing!
Alas, there’s a quick and easy fix for this in Klic-N-Kut Studio. After you create your image, use the Transform>Inline feature to basically duplicate your outside trace line, but shrink it just enough to fit within the colored boundaries of your clipart. Here’s a link to a quickie video I made to show how to do this! Let me know if you have any questions!
Users of KNK Studio will discover that some files they import or open will have white or invisible colors. These can both be very misleading and I always get rid of them as quickly as possible! The only time I might choose to use either is with a Print and Cut file where I wish to hide my cutting lines for the printing portion. But even then one can usually just send the trace lines to the back so that the raster image hides them… but that’s another tip for another day! lol
So, here’s a quickie video that shows how I get rid of invisible lines. Note that I have the Job Palette showing on the right side (View>Show Job Palette) and then I’m simply dragging a new color (with my left mouse button) and dropping it on top of the invisible color on the Job Palette. One thing to note… I don’t let go of the mouse button until I see that little black circle disappear. Watch closely for that.
Now…. go practice until you master that little trick. It comes in handy! 🙂
