You have a logo as a PNG, a customer sends a JPG of the sign they want, or you drew a design on paper and photographed it. Your laser cutter, CNC router or plasma table can't cut pixels. It needs paths: lines with a start, an end and a size in millimetres. That's what a DXF file holds.
Short answer: upload the image to a free Image to DXF converter, choose Keep colours (each colour goes on its own DXF layer) or Single colour outline, type the width in millimetres you want to cut, check the preview and download. Every shape comes out as a closed polyline, holes included, so it's ready to cut. It works best on logos, silhouettes, icons, signatures and line art. Photos of people or landscapes don't trace into anything useful, and no converter can change that.
Why a PNG or JPG Can't Go Straight to the Cutter
A PNG or JPG is a grid of coloured squares. Zoom in far enough on a circle and you see stairs. A laser head or router bit doesn't follow squares. It follows a path, so the image has to be traced: the software finds the edge between "shape" and "background" and draws a smooth outline along it.
DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) is the file AutoCAD introduced to swap drawings between programs, and it became the common language of the cutting world. LightBurn, xTool Creative Space, AutoCAD, Fusion 360, Inkscape, FreeCAD, SheetCAM and most CNC and plasma software can import it. Check your own software's import list, though: some machines (Glowforge, for example) work from SVG or PDF instead, and for those a PNG to SVG trace is the better route.
What the Converter Actually Does
Here's what happens when you click Convert, so you know what to expect in your CAD or laser software:
| Keep colours | Single colour outline | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Multi-colour logos, signs with engrave + cut areas | Black-and-white logos, stencils, signatures |
| Layers | One layer per colour, named after it (e.g. COLOUR_1_2563EB) | Everything on layer 0 |
| Shapes | Closed lightweight polylines (LWPOLYLINE) | Closed polylines with arcs |
| DXF version | AutoCAD 2010 | Classic R10, readable by almost any program |
| Units | Millimetres (the file is marked metric) | Millimetres |
| Background | Left out automatically | Anything lighter than the threshold is ignored |
The tracing is done with Potrace, the same open-source engine behind Inkscape's Trace Bitmap. The width you type sets the real size, and the height follows the image's proportions. Leave the width empty and one pixel becomes one millimetre, which is rarely what you want for a 3000 px logo.
How to Convert an Image to DXF (Step by Step)
- Prepare the image. Crop away everything you don't want cut with Crop Image. If the logo sits on a busy photo, remove the background first. If it's tiny (under about 800 px wide), run it through the image upscaler so thin lines survive the trace.
- Open Image to DXF and upload the PNG, JPG, WebP or BMP (up to 50 MB).
- Pick the mode. Keep colours for logos where each colour means something (cut, score, engrave). Set Colours to find to the number of colours in the logo, not counting the background. Single colour outline for one-colour artwork.
- Type the width in millimetres, for example 100 for a 10 cm coaster. Measure your stock first.
- Click Convert to DXF and look at the preview. Below it you'll see how many closed shapes were found and, in colour mode, each layer with its swatch and shape count.
- Adjust and convert again if needed (see the settings below), then download the DXF.
- Import it into LightBurn, XCS, Fusion 360 or your CAM software, check the size, assign cut or engrave settings per layer, and run a test on scrap.
The Settings That Matter
- Threshold. How much of each shape's soft edge counts as "shape". Higher makes shapes thicker, which can save thin strokes. Lower makes them thinner and can separate letters that touch.
- Remove specks. Ignores dots smaller than the size you set. Raise it when a scanned or JPG image produces dozens of tiny shapes from dust or compression noise, because every one of those is a separate cut.
- Corner smoothing. From Sharp (good for text and geometric logos) to Smoothest (good for hand-drawn and organic shapes).
- Invert (single colour only). Use it for light artwork on a dark background, such as a white logo on a black T-shirt photo.
- Colours to find (colour mode). Match it to the real number of colours. Too many and anti-aliased edges turn into extra thin layers; too few and two colours merge into one.
Which Images Convert Well (and Which Don't)
Good results:
- Logos and brand marks with flat colours
- Silhouettes, icons and clip art
- Signatures and handwriting on white paper (photographed in good light)
- Stencils, mandalas, line art, text
Poor results:
- Photos of people, pets or landscapes. Tracing turns shading into blobs. For a photo on wood, engrave the image as a raster in your laser software instead of cutting it.
- Tiny or heavily compressed JPGs, where edges are mush
- Images with soft shadows, gradients or glow effects
A quick test: if you could colour the image in with three or four felt-tip pens, it will trace well.
Before You Cut: Five Checks That Save Material
- Check the size after import. Most programs read the millimetre units from the file. If the drawing comes in about 25 times too big or too small, the program has assumed inches; set the import unit to mm.
- Look for floating islands. The inside of an O, A or a ring is a separate shape. In a sticker or engraving that's fine. In a stencil it falls out, so add small bridges in your design software.
- Mind the kerf. The laser beam or bit removes a thin strip of material (often around 0.1 to 0.3 mm on a diode or CO2 laser), so parts that must fit together need an offset.
- Delete the outer frame if you don't want it. A logo inside a solid box traces as the box plus everything in it.
- Count the shapes. If the preview says 400 shapes for a simple logo, raise Remove specks or start from a cleaner image. Every shape adds cutting time.
DXF or SVG: Which Should You Use?
Use DXF for CAD and CNC work: AutoCAD, Fusion 360, SheetCAM, plasma tables and most laser software. It carries real millimetre units and layers your CAM can map to operations. Use SVG for Glowforge, Cricut and web graphics, or when you want to edit the result in Illustrator or Inkscape. FileConvy does both: Image to DXF and PNG to SVG. For print shops that still ask for EPS, there's PNG to EPS too.
Quick FAQ
Can I convert a JPG to DXF for free? Yes. Upload the JPG to FileConvy's Image to DXF tool, choose a mode and width in millimetres, and download the DXF. There's no signup and no watermark, and PNG, WebP and BMP work the same way.
Is the DXF in millimetres or inches? Millimetres. The file is marked as metric, and the width you enter becomes the real width of the drawing. The height follows the image's proportions.
Are the shapes closed so the laser can cut them? Yes. Every shape is a closed polyline, including holes like the inside of an O, so laser and CNC software treat them as cuttable outlines rather than open lines.
Can a DXF keep the colours of my logo? Yes, as layers. In Keep colours mode each main colour goes on its own layer named after the colour, so you can set one layer to cut and another to engrave or score in LightBurn or your CAM software.
Will LightBurn open the DXF? LightBurn imports DXF files, as do xTool Creative Space, AutoCAD, Fusion 360, Inkscape and most CNC software. If your program struggles with newer files, use Single colour mode, which writes a classic R10 DXF that almost every program reads.
Why does my photo look like blobs after converting to DXF? Tracing turns an image into flat outlines, so shading and gradients become blobs. Photos are better engraved as raster images. For cutting, start from a logo, silhouette or line drawing.
Is my image stored? The image is traced on FileConvy's server, and the temporary files are deleted as soon as the DXF is sent back to you.