How do I adjust, fade, and crop an imported photo inside the software? (Edit Picture + Crop Bitmap)

You rarely need an outside photo editor. Two built-in tools handle most prep: Edit Picture for tonal adjustments and borders, and Crop Bitmap for trimming an image to a vector shape.

Edit Picture

Select the bitmap, then open Edit Picture from the Drawing tab. You get:

• Contrast slider: raises or flattens the difference between light and dark areas.
• Brightness slider: lightens or darkens the whole image.
• Gamma slider: lightens or darkens while preserving detail, usually the better first move for laser and Photo V-Carve prep.
• Invert: swaps black and white for a negative, handy when engraving dark materials.
• Grayscale: converts a color photo to black and white.
• Border: choose a Rectangular or Oval border, then set the fading Width to feather the image edges out to nothing, the classic vignette look for photo plaques.

In 12.5, bitmap fading is color-preserving, so a faded image keeps its original colors on screen instead of washing out, which makes it far easier to trace or design over a dimmed reference photo. 12.5 also adds .webp import support alongside the usual bitmap formats.

Crop Bitmap

Crop Bitmap trims an image using vectors instead of a rectangle:

1. Select the bitmap first.
2. Shift + left-click one or more closed vectors that outline the area you want to keep.
3. Click Crop Bitmap. Everything outside the vector(s) is cleared; only the image inside the selected contours remains.

This is the fast way to isolate a face from a busy background before a Photo V-Carve, or to fit a photo inside an oval or state-shape outline. For turning the image into vectors afterward, see the Trace Bitmap entry.

Pro tips

• Selection order matters for cropping: bitmap first, then Shift-click the vectors. Open vectors will not work.
• Do gamma and contrast adjustments before running Photo V-Carve or a Laser Picture toolpath; both strategies read the tonal range you leave behind.
• Edge fading plus an Oval border gives a finished portrait look with zero external software.