Silhouette Studio opens up access to all the artists and art practitioners to get through the array of excellent designs and patterns and let them be yours so that you can use them for your craft projects. Silhouette Studio is the most crucial element in creating elegant crafts. It gets your Silhouette machine to work out the cuttings of the selected designs for the development of beautiful art pieces.
With Silhouette Studio software installed on your PC, you get the craft-making right at your fingertips. If you are the owner of a brand-new Silhouette machine, you need to download the Silhouette Studio software to bring your Silhouette machine to some use. Furthermore, the Silhouette machine with the alliance of Silhouette Studio software lets you create various striking artworks with the neat and smooth cutouts of the designs that couldn’t have been possible with the customary scissors, cutters, and other cutting tools.
Primary Features of Silhouette Studio
Silhouette Studio software enables you to produce artistic cutouts through the Silhouette machine with just a few clicks of your mouse. Given below are some of the key features of the Silhouette Studio software. Check them out:
- The Silhouette Studio software helps you create designs and send them to your Silhouette machine for a fine imprint.
- It has a basic design along with the text tools.
- The software also features the manipulation tools such as Move, Rotate, Scale, Align, and Replicate.
- Silhouette Studio has a pack of modification tools, including Weld, Divide, Crop, and Subtract.
- You can use the software to cut the design by line or to fill color.
- A range of fonts is also accessible on the software that you can use in your projects.
- It has the ability to use the files in JPG, BMP, and PNG formats.
- With Silhouette Studio, you can do both, printing and cutting designs.
- The software is PixScan compatible
- You can use the image effects like b/w, tint, color saturation, and more.
Unpacking Silhouette Box Content
Prior to your Silhouette Studio setup, the Silhouette machine setup is a considerable step to creating your anticipated craft projects. For a setup, you will be required to unpack your newly-purchased Silhouette machine box. The box content includes:
- Silhouette cutting machine
- Power cord to connect the machine to the power source and turn it on to be able to function.
- USB cord to connect your machine to your computer. It’s your alternative to a Bluetooth connection with your PC.
- Silhouette Auto Blade, based on the Silhouette model you purchased. The blade automatically adjusts to the blade depth depending on the type of material you have chosen to cut. It lets you get away with manual blade adjustment in your machine.
- Ratchet tool to enable the manual adjustment of blade depth of the Ratchet blade or the Auto blade.
- 12×12 inch Silhouette cutting mat, a sticky mat to hold your material in place for accuracy while being cut with the machine.
- Tool adapters
- Handheld blade adjuster
Removing the packaging
Your Silhouette machine is delivered to you with protective tape strips, cardboards, and foam to prevent any damage. Given below are the steps to remove the packaging carefully:
- Take the Silhouette machine out of the box and start removing the tape strips from the lid and other parts of the machine.
- Remove the tabs from the front, the other two from the side panels, and one at the top of your Silhouette machine.
- Then, lift the lid a bit and remove any tape strips, cardboard, and pieces of foam inside the machine.
- Ensure removing the tape from the backside of the machine holding the crosscutter in place.
How to Register Silhouette Machine?
Registering your Silhouette machine is a necessary step to making your machine functional before downloading the Silhouette Studio software. Check out the following steps mentioned below to register your Silhouette machine.
- First, open your web browser and visit silhouetteamerica.com/setup.
- Now, create your Silhouette account, if necessary, to proceed with the registration process.
- In case, you already have a Silhouette account created, click on the Sign-in link.
- Enter all the required details in the specified fields and click on Submit Registration button.
- Now, on the Tool Registration page, enter other details, including the serial number of your Silhouette machine. You can find the serial number on the sticker on the rear side of your machine, where the crosscutter cartridge of your machine is located.
System Requirements for Silhouette Studio Download
The minimum system requirements to run the Silhouette Studio software include the following:
- The Silhouette Studio may run on PC (Windows 8 and higher) OR Mac (OS X 10.14 and higher). Chromebook doesn’t support the software currently.
- A fast-speed internet connection is a must-have in order to update timely and access the software smoothly. You need to activate a license key for an upgrade.
- Your system must have at least 4 GB of RAM in order to run the software.
- You need to ensure 2 GHz (or faster) processor speed for a swift running of the software.
- Minimum2 GB of hard disk space is required.
- There must be a USB 2.0 Port (or higher) available for the Silhouette to work.
Note: Abovementioned requirements are the minimum you need to have to ensure the working of the Silhouette Studio on your devices. However, for improved performance, higher specifications are recommended. Some of the Silhouette features like Image Effects may need you to upgrade your graphics cards.
- Silhouette Studio, being desktop-only software, can only run on PC and Mac.
- It is not yet available for Chromebook, iPad, and other tablet devices.
Silhouette Studio Download process
To make your Silhouette machine work, you first need to download the Silhouette Studio software on your PC or laptop. It is then used to select a design and send it to the machine to operate and cut the required shapes and designs for effective artwork.
You need to visit silhouetteamerica.com/setup, for Silhouette Studio Download on your device and follow the required procedure to get the setup installed successfully. You can then begin to search or add designs to get the desired cutouts for your craft projects. Given below are the steps you need to follow in order to download the Silhouette Studio setup:
- Firstly, open the web browser on your PC and visit silhouetteamerica.com/setup.
- Now, select the Silhouette machine model you own and move to Step 2, “Download & Install software.”
- Then, choose the operating system you are currently using on your device, whether Mac or Windows.
- Once you select your operating system, the setup starts getting downloaded on your device. You will then be required to follow the onscreen instructions to continue with the downloading and installing of the setup. If you already have the older version of Silhouette Studio setup installed on your device, you need to consider updating the software to its latest version.
- Once you see that the setup has been downloaded on your device, click to Run the downloaded file and select the default installation options that you see on your screen.
- You will soon see the successful installation of the software that the setup is now ready to be launched and let you begin with using your Silhouette machine.
- You will have the Silhouette Studio icon created on your desktop so now your Silhouette Studio software is all set to be used by double-clicking or right-clicking open process.
- You can create a shortcut to open the Silhouette Studio single-click by dragging the icon to pin it on your Taskbar.
How to Print & Cut on Silhouette Studio?
The new practitioners who have begun working on Silhouette should start working on simple designs on slightly inexpensive stuff prior to trying cutting the complex ones and on expensive materials. You may perform the Print & Cut function on Silhouette Studio by using the steps mentioned below. The steps need to be followed in the order they have been mentioned for you to try the Print & Cut job.
- Open the Silhouette Studio app on your system and click on the New File icon for a new cutting job.
- As soon as you open a new file, you will see the Page Setup Panel on the right-side panel of your screen. A Design Area Setup panel, under which, you need to select the following:
- Firstly, you need to adjust the Media Size that matches your actual printed paper size, which mostly is 8.5″ x 11″.
- Then the mat size that is currently being used is needed to be selected. A cutting mat is required to cut all types of materials accurately.
- Now, click to check Show Print Border and Show Cut Border boxes. This will help you know your ability to place print information and cut information.
- Next, in the Page Setup section, click to open Registration Marks, the third in the list of icons at the top.
- Click to turn on the Registration Marks. The series of Registration marks will get visible around the corners of your workplace. When you send the cut job to the printer, these marks will then get printed to let the Silhouette machine scan the marks to understand the cut lines requirements of the printed image.
- Click to open the Restore Defaults option.
- You now need to place your design in the workplace and adjust the size as you desire. You need to make sure the design should not be overlapping the registration marks, hash mark areas, cut border, or print border.
- As soon as your design is ready, click on Print to send a job to your printer.
- Having the page printed, load the page on your Silhouette cutting mat and then insert the mat into the Silhouette machine.
- Move to the Send panel and select the material settings according to the material you are using.
- Then, click on Send option.
- The machine then begins to detect the Registration marks to know where to cut. Once detected, the machine will then start cutting the material for your craft project.