I have a .jpg file someone sent me that appears for all the world as purely black and white yet when I open it in Estlcam it tells me there are 32 differently colored areas and forces me to choose between carve, halftone, or laser when I’d prefer to use the more ‘normal’ (to me) part, hole, etc. commands. I don’t have access to how it was originally created, just trying to do someone a favor. Is there an easy way to convert it to pure B & W?
It’s probably greyscale. Should be able to open it in any graphics application and just desaturate it.
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I don’t use EstlCAM, so I’m uncertain of the “right” solution. There are many online converters that will take an image and produce a B&W version of that image. If you want only pure black and pure white, you want a converter that has “threshold” in the title. Note to keep that image in just these two colors, you will need to save it as a PNG or to save it as a .JPG at 100% (no compression). The JPG compression algorithm will introduce some grays in a pure black and pure white image.
But I’m thinking what you may want to do is convert that image to a vector format rather than bring it in as in image in EstlCAM. If so, Inkscape’s trace bitmap feature can make the conversion.
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Thanks guys! The only graphics programs I have are Paint and Inkscape. I didn’t see a ‘desaturate’ command in either and I have to confess when I downloaded Inkscape it seemed far too complicated for my simple needs of a few signs here and there. It’s a trivet someone wants me to cut, probably for Thanksgiving so I have time to get smarter.
I had a second Covid shot yesterday and thought I’d escaped any side affects but 30 hours later I’m starting to feel the same fatigue I did after getting a second Shingrix shot and flu shot on the same day in late summer. I’ve heard from folks who’ve had flu like symptoms so a little fatigue doesn’t bother me, just not really in the mood to study much right now.
The Trace Bitmap command in inkscape is the only thing I know how to do in inkscape. I watched a couple of YouTube videos to learn how to use it. I use Trace Bitmap fairly frequently, and am impressed how well it works for many images.
I’ve heard from folks who’ve had flu like symptoms so a little fatigue doesn’t bother me,
Take care of yourself. My wife goes for her second shot next week, and from what she has read, she is expecting some reaction.
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Yes, this is the best choice.
Thanks for that! I keep forgetting to use YouTube as the resource it is. 
Reactions seem to be all over the map. I was talking to a friend around noon today and his 40 YO son had a bit of a fever/chills but it passed pretty quickly. Telling him how good I’d been feeling all day must’ve attracted my old pal Murphy, a few hours later I felt like someone had pulled the power plug, no fever etc., just instant fatigue. Laid down for an hour or so and feel much better. At least I feel like I’ve tipped the odds in my favor a bit, always a good thing. Covid played a part in bringing me to V1 
, but enough is enough!
If that have bitmap doesn’t work. I’ve got Photoshop 8 if you want, I could take it and try to exchange it there.
One thing you could try is out it into powerpoint and change the picture into just b&w then save it as a new picture.
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If you have a strong B/W image, then the thresholding on trace bitmap should work pretty well and create a good svg for estlcam to follow.
Thanks! Appreciate the offer! I want to spend a little time on YouTube and see if I can figure it out. Much like I’ll remember how to get somewhere if I’m driving the car, I’ll remember how to do something if I figure it out.
I thought I did, B/W is all I see when I open it in Inkscape. I guess it’s just one of the snags trying to work with something when you don’t know how it was created. Isn’t a pressing issue so I’ll have time to play with it. This little vaccine reaction caught me off guard, can use a good night’s sleep and I’m working on another little project with some files sourced from Etsy.