A wallpaper, a tree line or a workshop wall can burn darker than the face in front of it. Here is how to take the background out cleanly, in order.
Reviewed by the Vextrify team, tested in our own laser workshops · Updated · How we test
Try Vextrify freeRemove the background in the background remover, inspect the edge, then continue in Photo Studio with the cut-out over white. Transparent areas are placed over white and stay unengraved, so nothing around the subject burns. If you are not sure the background has to go at all, read the separate guide on white backgrounds first.
Start with the on-device modes: they run locally and output a transparent PNG. For difficult edges such as hair, fur or semi-transparent fabric, use Cut Pro. It runs on Vextrify's server, not on your device. The Auto setting uses Cut Pro for hard subjects, so you can leave it on Auto if you do not want to judge the image yourself.
Zoom in on the outline before you go on. Look for leftover background in gaps such as between an arm and the body, for bites taken out of hair, and for a thin light fringe. A fringe of the old background is the usual reason a cut-out looks pasted on after engraving, because a pale halo reads as a ring around the subject.
Pure white (255) receives no laser power, so a cut-out on exact white leaves the material untouched around the subject. An almost-white background is different: it is not zero, and it burns a grey haze across the whole rectangle. In Vextrify, transparent areas are placed over white and stay unengraved. Do not replace the transparency with a light grey or a cream tone sampled from the photo.
Removal only isolates the subject; it is not the finished engraving. Pick a material profile in Photo Studio, review the tone in the live preview and choose a dithering method. If the job is a logo rather than a photo, Vectorize or Contour can turn the artwork into SVG outlines instead. To treat many photos the same way, Batch applies a saved recipe to all of them and returns one ZIP. Find the machine settings with a test grid on scrap, never from a copied number.
The on-device modes run locally. Cut Pro, used for difficult edges and hair, runs on Vextrify's server. A free account is needed to load and process images.
The area around the subject is almost white rather than pure white. Pure white (255) gets no laser power; anything slightly darker burns a grey haze. Keep the area transparent so it is placed over white.
Use Cut Pro, which is built for hair and difficult edges. Then zoom in on the outline to check for leftover background or bites before you continue.
Yes, but for flat artwork Vectorize or Contour often fit better, because they produce clean SVG outlines instead of a raster cut-out.