How to Turn a Cricut Design into a PNG

Yes, it's possible to not only export them, but also turn a Cricut design into a PNG file.

The trick is knowing how to export from Cricut Design Space as well as how to save a PDF into a PNG. I covered the steps on how to save a design from Design Space here so start there and then pick up with the steps below so you can turn your design into a PNG.

Once your design has been saved out of Cricut as a PDF you're going to open in Silhouette Studio. You don't need a Silhouette cutting machine to use Silhouette Studio. Anyone can download the software and use it for free.

However, to open PDF files in Silhouette Studio you'll need the one time paid upgrade of Designer Edition which is about $25. But... if you also plan to export this file from Silhouette Studio as a PNG you'll need Silhouette Studio Business Edition which is a one time paid upgrade of $50 (and you can jump right to Business from the free Silhouette Studio here).

Open Silhouette Studio and click the Design tab along the top towards the right side. Don't worry too much about what the page setup looks like right now.

Go to File > Merge and select the Cricut Design file now saved on your computer as a PDF.

The design will come into Silhouette Studio with the Cricut registration marks. We need to use the trace tool from the right sidebar of Silhouette Studio to trace this image.

Once you click the Trace tool click "Select Trace Area". Use your mouse to draw a selection around directly over the image. Do not include the registration marks. This is why we put that extra square behind the image in Cricut Design Space, before we exported, to make it easier by giving us more room to trace the image.

The Trace Selection Box will turn the image or parts of the image yellow.

Move the Threshold bar on the Trace panel to adjust the amount of yellow shading. Ideally you want ONLY and all of the image to turn yellow.

Click "Trace and Detach". It will look like nothing happened, but once the yellow area goes away you'll be able to pull the background area of your image away (and delete it) from the image itself.

To make it easier for you to see that the image background was removed, I increased the transparency on my virtual cutting mat from the Page Setup Panel.

Select your design and go to File > Save Selection As > Save to Hard Drive. From the window that appears change the file type to PNG.

Once you click "Ok" you'll get another box. Here you can change the resolution (aka DPI - Dots Per Inch). I'd recommend increasing to 300.

You can also check the box for transparent background if you want to export the PNG with a transparent background. Click Save.

Congrats you've just turned a Cricut design into a PNG that you can use for printing to a sublimation printer, creating stickers or even using as a laser file.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links. By clicking on them and purchasing products through my links, I receive a small commission. That's what helps fund Silhouette School so I can keep buying new Silhouette-related products to show you how to get the most out of your machine!

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