Lino Base

Highlight lines Show zones

100%

Size

Zones

Pens

Open a photo to cut it down to black and white.

JPEG, PNG or TIFF. The image is processed on this computer and is never sent anywhere. You can also drop a file here.

Working

A zone is a part of the picture with its own settings. Pick Box, Ellipse, Lasso or Area on the left and draw on the picture.

An iteration keeps the settings, zones, pen marks and result as they are now. Restore one to go back to it, or compare it with the current result in Split view.

A settings file stores the current settings and all iterations, without the image. Open the same image again before loading it.

Source: none

Working size: none

On the block: none

Black: none

Last update: none

Download

File name Block width

Block height

Mirror left to right, ready to transfer onto the block

1 bit per pixel. Strict black and white.

1 bit per pixel, uncompressed. Strict black and white.

Vector outlines. Scales to any block size.

Smoothed Exact pixels Smoothing

Not strict: compression leaves faint grey fringes along edges.

Quality 95

Guide

Black and white

Threshold decides which greys print black. Local detail lets the threshold follow the light, which helps with shadows and uneven lighting. Clean up removes specks and rounds shapes that are too small to cut.

Thin lines

Whiskers, hairs, wires and veins are found in the photo before the threshold can swallow them. Each one is then drawn in the colour opposite to what prints around it: white where it crosses black, black where it crosses white. Highlight lines shows what was found.

Sensitivity: higher finds fainter lines.
Ignore texture: higher keeps only lines that stand out from fur, grass or grain.
Drawn width: set it to the finest line your gouge can cut.

Zones

Draw a Box, Ellipse, Lasso or brushed Area, then give that zone its own threshold, invert it, fill it, or change how lines are found inside it. Later zones win where zones overlap.

Pens

Black and White paint over the result. The Contrast pen draws a line that turns white over black and black over white. Erase removes pen marks only.

Iterations

Undo and Redo step through every change. Save iteration keeps a named version you can restore or compare in Split view.

Keys

VMove and select RBox, E Ellipse, L Lasso, A Area BBlack pen, W White, C Contrast, X Erase [Smaller brush, ] larger SpaceHold and drag to move the picture with any tool ScrollZoom. 0 fits the picture, 1 shows real pixels ShiftWhile drawing a shape: add it to the selected zone. Alt cuts it out DeleteRemove the selected zone