Bleed and Cut Lines are two features intended to be used for images that will be cut out sometime after the printing process, either by machine or by hand. Bleed will add a bleed margin to the image to avoid material color remaining visible after cut, while Cut Line automatically adds a Cut line around the contour of your image file.
You can
activate the features either by modifying the settings right in the dialog and
clicking Add to apply them to the selected image.
Bleed and Cut Lines can also be saved as a Tune Preset by clicking the green
plus button at the top. This will save all current Bleed and Cut Line
parameters into a single preset that can easily be applied to images in the
future by selecting it from the dropdown menu.
Bleed adds a margin around the selected image that mirrors and continues the pattern of the image. This way, small inaccuracies when cutting can be hidden this way as it avoids white material being visible.
Add Bleed: Activates the Bleed feature and adds the bleed margin to the image. You can modify the size of the bleed margin at any time by increasing the value in the Size box.
Cut Lines automatically generates a cut line around the contour of the image file. This can be either the rectangular outline of the image or even the «true shape» of the image be treating white as transparent and arranging the cut line around the contour of the actual image content.
Add Cut Lines: Activates the feature and enables the configuration parameters.
Distance: Sets the distance of the cut lines from the image edges.
Line Width: Sets the line width of the Cut Line. A line width of 0 makes the line invisible, but still able to be cut. Wider line width will cause the Cut Line to become visible in the printout.
Cut Path Color Name: Sets a spot color for the Cut Line. This way the Cut Line can be identified by this color name in the cut dialog. This is useful e.g. when using the Cut Line function alongside pre-existing paths in the image. If this is empty the path can still be cut, but cannot be identified by name.
Treat White as Transparent: Will ignore white areas when creating the Cut Line and create the cutline along the actual colored contours of the image. E.g. a circle on white background will receive a Cut Line along the edges of the circle instead of around the square dimension of the image file.
Once you click the Add button below the settings, the Bleed and Cut Line will be applied to the image file according to your settings. Though note that once added, the bleed cannot be removed from this image instance. To reset it, the image will need to be re-imported.