Which studio should I use?

The first two turn one picture into a stack of flat sheets that glue up into something with real depth. They differ in what the sheets are, and that difference decides which one you want before you type anything. The third, Vectorize a Photo, is not a stack at all: it turns a photograph into one engraving - an AI drawing of it, or the photo itself as black-and-white dots.

Stepped Layers

One design, cut at several depths. You give it a black-and-white design — a mandala, an animal, a monogram — and every sheet is that same design, each one cutting away a little more, so the piece steps down into itself like a contour model. Every sheet has the same outline. The result reads as carved.

Reach for it when:

• the piece is one object rather than a view of a place
• you want symmetry, or ornament that repeats
• you already have artwork — a logo, a line drawing, a client’s design
• you want the whole thing to come off the bed as one plate per sheet

Start at Your first mandala.

Landscape Silhouette Layers

A scene split by distance, one sheet per depth. Grass and stones in front, a fence and a tree, the cabin, the tree line, the mountains, the moon. Each sheet is a different part of the scene rather than a deeper cut of the same one, and stacked they combine into a shadow box or lightbox. Sheets do not share a silhouette; they share a frame.

Reach for it when:

• the piece is a place — a landscape, a skyline, a room
• you want the papercut lightbox look, with daylight through the openings
• you are happy to place a few loose pieces by hand at glue-up
• you want to light it from behind

Start at How a scene becomes sheets.

Vectorize a Photo

A photograph, engraved. Upload a photo and it comes back ready for the laser to burn into one surface - an AI drawing of it, as a pen-and-ink engraving or as line art, or the photo itself as black-and-white dots, free. Nothing is cut out and nothing is stacked.

Reach for it when:

• you have a photo of people, a pet or a place and want it on wood, slate or tile
• the piece is a flat engraving rather than a layered one

Start at From a photo to an engraving.

The short version

• An object, carved. Stepped Layers.
• A place, in depth. Landscape Silhouette Layers.
• A photo, engraved. Vectorize a Photo.

What they share

In the two stacking studios, your material settings, kerf, the export and everything about getting it onto the cutter work the same way, and are written once: Your material, Exporting your files and On the cutter. The few differences — how Min feature size is measured, and which way round the sheets are numbered — are spelled out on those pages. Billing is the same too: an AI picture costs credits or runs on your own key, and building a picture into layers costs credits once on Pay as you go and nothing on Studio, in either studio.