Image → SVG · DXF · EPS
Makerfern: free PNG to SVG converter that checks the cut
Makerfern is a free, browser-based image-to-SVG toolkit for Cricut, Silhouette, laser cutting and stencils. In your browser, it turns a logo, drawing or sticker design into a layered cut file sized for your machine, with specks cleaned up and thin spots flagged.
- Unlimited and free
- No account
- Nothing uploaded by default
Part of 58 free tools for people who make and sell things: cut files, coloring pages, stencils, artwork and pricing.
What's new : New tool: photo separation for screen printing
Drop your image, get a cut-ready SVG. The converter uploads nothing.
Sent here by an AI assistant? Drop the picture it was working on; this shows what will actually cut.
Faster with the free Chrome extension: right-click any picture on a website and send it straight to the converter. Add to Chrome · what it does
Extension installed. Right-click any picture on a website and choose Makerfern → Open this picture in… to bring it here.
New · free Chrome extension
Found the picture on another site? Right-click it.
Makerfern for Chrome puts these tools on the right-click menu of any picture on the web. No saving to your downloads, no re-uploading: the picture goes straight into the tool, and still never leaves your computer.
Add to Chrome, free Installed ✓ Right-click any picture What it does
Right-click a picture → Makerfern
- Open this picture in… the layered SVG maker, the stencil maker, the coloring page maker or any cut-file tool
- Remove the background and save a transparent PNG
- Is it really transparent? Catches fake checkerboard PNGs before you buy or print
- How big will it print? Sizes at 300, 200 and 150 dpi
- What colours are in it? The vinyl layers you would need
See the difference
A trace is not a cut file
Every converter can turn pixels into paths. The problem starts on the mat: specks you can't weed, a hairline that tears, a letter whose middle falls out. Here is our sample badge, a 900 px PNG, traced twice at 3 inches wide: once plain, once with the Cricut preset.
Plain trace
- Pieces 45
- Specks under 1.5 mm 40
- Thin spots checked No
- Path nodes 381
Makerfern, Cricut preset
- Pieces 6
- Specks under 1.5 mm 0
- Thin spots flagged 0
- Path nodes 95
Numbers come from running the engine on the sample when this page was built, not from a mock-up. The plain trace is the same colours traced region by region, with no cleanup and no smoothing: each speck is a few anti-aliased edge pixels that landed on a colour of their own.
Drag to compare. The vector stays sharp at any size.
Why makers switch
Built around the cut, not the file
Measured in millimetres
Tell it how wide you'll cut, and every decision is made at that size: what counts as a speck, what is too thin to weed, how wide a stencil bridge needs to be.
Runs on your computer
No upload, no queue, no copy of your artwork on someone else's server. The one exception is the optional Cloud mode of the coloring page maker, the coloring book maker, the stencil maker, the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker: it is off unless you choose it, and it sends that one photo to an AI service (Cloudflare Workers AI) to be redrawn. It works on a slow connection, and it works on designs you are not allowed to share.
Free without a counter
Other converters charge per image because every image costs them a server call. Ours costs nothing to run, so converting to SVG has no daily limit and no watermark.
The cut report
Four problems it catches before your blade does
Each check runs on every conversion and shows up on the preview, so you fix it on screen instead of on a sheet of vinyl.
Specks you can't weed
Pieces smaller than your minimum are merged into whatever surrounds them, so a stray anti-aliasing pixel doesn't become a cut.
Parts too thin to survive
Anything narrower than your limit is marked in red on the preview (outlined, or underlined where the lettering is small), with its measured width, before it tears on the transfer tape.
Centers that fall out
In stencil mode, every enclosed island gets the shortest possible bridge to the rest of the sheet, at the width you choose.
Gaps between vinyl colors
Stacked layers run each color under the ones above it, so a slightly off layering job never shows a sliver of shirt.
Pricing
Free for SVG. Pro when you need the other formats.
No credits and no conversion counter on either plan.
Free
Everything you need for Cricut, Silhouette Designer Edition and web.
- Unlimited SVG conversions
- All six machine presets
- Cut report, stencil bridges, sticker borders
- 300 dpi PNG for print then cut
Files for every machine
Start from the preset for what you cut
SVG for Cricut
Stacked layers at the size you set, ready for Design Space.
Open preset →Silhouette cut files
SVG for Designer Edition, DXF for Basic.
Open preset →Laser and CNC
One clean outline in millimetres for LightBurn, xTool or CAM.
Open preset →Stencils
Automatic bridges so nothing drops out of the sheet.
Open preset →Print then cut stickers
A smooth offset border around the art.
Open preset →Layered vinyl
Color layers that overlap instead of leaving gaps.
Open preset →Also in your subscription
The rest of the job, not just the trace
Fill a page, print it, cut it
Lay stickers out at the exact size you want on Letter or A4. The printed page and the cut file come from one layout, so they line up instead of nearly lining up.
Make a sheet → Background removerArtwork to transparent PNG
Clear a plain backdrop off a logo, clipart or a product shot, keeping the soft edges that make a design sit properly on a new colour.
Clear a background → Print size checkerBig enough to print?
Pixels divided by inches, answered before you waste a sheet of vinyl. See the biggest size the file holds, and save it resized.
Check a size → Colour paletteWhat to buy, and how much
Every colour in a design with its share, and a real area at your finished size. The same colours the layered cut file will have.
Read a palette → Craft pricingWhat should I charge?
Price it with your time costed properly, not as a rounding error. Two pricing rules side by side, each showing what it really pays per hour.
Work out a price → Fees and profitWhat the sale actually leaves
Transaction, processing, listing and ads fees taken in the order a marketplace takes them — with your rates, and the break-even price underneath.
Check a sale →Every tool runs on your own computer, so they stay free to use. See all eight, or read what one Pro plan unlocks across the set.
Guides
Fix it before it reaches the mat
Why your SVG has hundreds of tiny pieces
Where they come from, and how to set a minimum that suits the material.
StencilsStencil bridges: keep the middle of the O
How wide to make them, where to put them, and when you don't need them.
Layered vinylStacked or flat layers?
Two ways to build a multi-color decal, and which one hides a misaligned press.
Questions
Frequently asked
What is Makerfern?
Makerfern is a free, browser-based image-to-SVG toolkit for Cricut, Silhouette, laser cutting and stencils. It converts PNG, JPG and WEBP images into cut-ready SVG files, checks for tiny pieces and thin spots, and keeps the artwork on your device.
Is Makerfern really free?
Yes. Converting to SVG has no daily limit, no account and no watermark, and that includes every cleanup step and the cut report. It can stay free because the conversion runs on your own computer: there is no server doing the work and no per-image bill behind it. Pro adds DXF and EPS files, one file per color layer, and batch conversion.
Do you upload my image?
No. The image is read by your browser and traced by code running on this page. You can check it: open your browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab and convert something. No request carries your image. That matters if you sell designs, or you are converting a client's logo you don't have the right to hand to a third party. The one exception is the optional Cloud mode of the coloring page maker, the coloring book maker, the stencil maker, the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker: it is off unless you choose it, and it sends that one photo to an AI service (Cloudflare Workers AI) to be redrawn.
Will the SVG work in Cricut Design Space and Silhouette Studio?
The SVG is intentionally plain: one filled shape per color, closed paths, no clipping masks, patterns, strokes or embedded CSS. Those are the things that make cutting software merge layers or drop shapes. The file also states its width in real units, so it arrives at the size you set. Silhouette Studio Basic Edition does not open SVG files. Use a DXF there (Pro), or upgrade Studio.
What does "measured at the cut size" mean?
A speck that is 6 pixels wide might be 2 mm on a mug decal or 12 mm on a sign. Makerfern asks how wide you will cut the design, converts every limit to millimetres, and only then decides what is too small to weed or too thin to survive. Change the width and the cleanup changes with it.
Can it convert a photograph?
It can, and you should expect a poster-like result: a photo has thousands of tones, and a cut file can only have a handful of flat colors. Logos, clipart, lettering, line art and sticker designs are what it is built for. For a single-color cut from a photo, use the Stencil or Laser preset and set colors to 2.
What are the numbers in the presets based on?
They are Makerfern's starting points, not a machine manufacturer's specification. Vinyl, cardstock, blades and mats all behave differently, so every limit is shown next to the control that changes it. Do a test cut with a new material and adjust from there.
What actually happens when you convert an image
A PNG or JPG is a grid of colored squares. Nothing in it records that the squares form a circle or a letter, which is why enlarging one gives you bigger squares. An SVG stores the shapes themselves, so it holds its edge at any size. Converting between them isn't a format change. It's a rebuild.
Makerfern rebuilds in five passes. It finds the handful of real colors in the image and ignores the in-between shades that anti-aliasing leaves around every edge. It removes the background. It cleans up at your cut size, merging pieces below your minimum into their surroundings. It traces each color's outline along the pixel edges. Then it fits smooth curves to those outlines, keeping real corners sharp. The last step is why a circle comes out as four clean curves rather than hundreds of tiny steps.
Two things decide the result more than any setting. The first is source size: a logo around 1,000 pixels across traces far better than a 200-pixel thumbnail, because a blurry edge gets traced faithfully as a blurry edge (more on sizing). The second is color count: a cut file needs a few flat colors, so gradients and photos turn into bands.
What it deliberately doesn't do
It doesn't invent detail. The converter traces only what is in your image, so nothing appears that wasn't there. And it doesn't claim a file will cut perfectly on your material. The report tells you what it measured; a test cut tells you the rest.