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Eric Seest
03-29-2009, 6:59 PM
I am trying to engrave this photo onto a piece of marble, but my first attempt did not turn out very well. I had two lines run up the middle of the boy and there was not much detail on the girl; her arms and dress blended together. I imported it into corel draw converted it to grayscale and then used the powerclip in order to cut the background out. I don't have photograv so it will have to be done with corel; and I have read several threads and done the suggestions but it just doesn't look right. I guess I just need to know if this picture is going to work or do I need to request another photo. I appricate any advice anyone would have.
PLS6.60 setting 20% power 50% speed and 250ppi.

Dan Hintz
03-29-2009, 7:45 PM
<chuckle> What an adorable pic :) I assume you're using something with more pixels than what you attached however. Marble can handle a lot more than 250dpi, and even at 250dpi that image is only 3" wide.

The power/speed setting appears about right for a 60W, possibly a bit on the low side for power. Make sure your image dpi/inch is the same as your control panel's dpi/ppi setting. I would also try to equalize the brightness levels between the boy and girl.

Dee Gallo
03-29-2009, 8:10 PM
Well, I took a stab at it, if you can use it. It was only 72 dpi, so I increased it to 300, so the size is 3.5 x 5.25". Keep in mind I'm still new at this, so thanks for the practice!

cheers, dee

Steve Clarkson
03-29-2009, 8:35 PM
Dee,

If you want practice.......I have 23 photos that need to be processed......

Dee Gallo
03-29-2009, 8:53 PM
For you, Steve, sure! Send em' over!:D

Eric Seest
03-29-2009, 8:59 PM
Well, I took a stab at it, if you can use it. It was only 72 dpi, so I increased it to 300, so the size is 3.5 x 5.25". Keep in mind I'm still new at this, so thanks for the practice!

cheers, dee


Dee,
Nice, I like it.
According to the information I have on the photo I have it is 230dpi. When I import it into corel I have to shrink the picture because I have to put it on a 5x7 piece. You said you changed it to 300dpi, did you do that when you converted it to grayscale? What did you adjust to darken some of the lighter spots? Thanks

Dan Hintz
03-29-2009, 9:25 PM
Time out! The image linked in the original post was 581 x 775 pixels... you can resample to something higher, but you're still only working with enough information for a 2.3" x 3/1" image at 250dpi. Resampling doesn't give you any better of an image. The tile will look better at something at least 333dpi. For a 5x7 tile, you need an image 1665x2331 (about a 4Mpixel image).

Eric Seest
03-29-2009, 9:49 PM
The picture I posted it from is 1932x2576 pixels, I am not sure why it showed up smaller when I posted it. Sorry about the first post I thought it posted it the way I have it. Hopefully the zip file will help some. When it comes to photos I am a little lacking that's the wife's area not mine. Thanks again.

Dee Gallo
03-29-2009, 10:06 PM
Time out! The image linked in the original post was 581 x 775 pixels... you can resample to something higher, but you're still only working with enough information for a 2.3" x 3/1" image at 250dpi. Resampling doesn't give you any better of an image. The tile will look better at something at least 333dpi. For a 5x7 tile, you need an image 1665x2331 (about a 4Mpixel image).

That may all be true, Dan, but I just used what Eric posted. I think my final pixel count was 1050 x 1575.

Eric, if you had posted the final size needed I would have made it that size - do you have scrap to run a test on? It would be interesting to know if my file will work. You'd have to invert it of course for marble. Which means you should fill the background with black before inverting. It's true that there is not great resolution because of the origianl 72 dpi, but hey, we do what we can with what we've got.

If there is anyone else out there willing to try this file, I'd love to see how they treat it. To answer your questions, I changed it to 300 dpi first, converted to greyscale after removing the background and resizing. I worked on the contrast and brightness, and used the dodge and burn in Photoshop to even out the tones on the girl's face and lighten the boy's shirt which was just solid black.

Like I said, I'm still learning.

cheers, dee

Dee Gallo
03-29-2009, 11:30 PM
Okay Eric, here's another one done with the new file you posted. It was much more clear. I made it a tif so you would not lose any info, and it should be the right size this time. It contains 1150 x 1798 pixels. Shouodl work better for you.

cheers, dee

ps- Steve & Frank, I'm getting used to the pen now, even though I'm still using my other hand to zoom. It's still slower than using the mouse for me, but practice makes perfect!

Mike Chance in Iowa
03-30-2009, 1:40 AM
Okay here goes. Since this is a teaching/learning experience and I am not engraving it myself, I only spent a few minutes on this. This is just a quick and dirty draft of what you can accomplish and a guide that you may use while editing your own photo.

For this image, I used PaintShop Pro and I use two layers. The first (top) raster layer is the photo, the second raster layer is the black background for the black marble. This way, if I need to engrave the image on something else, I can quickly remove the black background.

I cloned the hem of her dress to remove the vegetation and give it a clean line. I adjusted the Highlight/Midtone/Shadow to lighten the shadows and darken the highlights and tweak the midtones to my liking. I darkened the girl's arms a shade in order for her skintone to stand out better from the pale dress. I lightened the shadows on her face & eye and darkened the bright sun on her cheek. I sharpened the whole image. I lightened the boy's teeth.

If I were to engrave this photo, I would clean up the edges and finish removing the background from her hair. I would tweak the shading on her hair so the blond curls would "pop" and become more defined as well as tweak the shading/sun on her arms and on the boy's shirt so they are not so blotchy. I may also define some shadows here and there in order define contours, smiles, clothing folds or pleats.

Forgot to add. If this were my engraving/photo, I would also adjust the size and dpi to fit the marble appropriately. I only adjusted the size on this photo so I could easily upload it to SMC.

Frank Corker
03-30-2009, 4:26 AM
Nice job Dee but I think your background needed to be black like Mike did.

Eric Seest
03-30-2009, 8:46 AM
Thanks to all for the help and explaining what needs to be done to fix the photo. I have figured a lot out since getting the laser, but pictures are still kicking my butt. I don't work a lot with photo-paint so I am still learning what it can do. Thanks to all on the help I will give it a try. I am getting in a wacom pad (new toy to learn), should be here today and hopefully the new computer will be in this week so I can actually run the laser with a computer that is up to speed. I am thinking that is why I had some lines in the last attempt on this photo. Well I will give them a try and let you know how it all turns out. Once again thank you very much.

Dee Gallo
03-30-2009, 8:50 AM
Nice job Dee but I think your background needed to be black like Mike did.

I knew that the second I posted that picture.... so I'm going to redo it. More practice! Thanks for the advice, every bit helps.

cheers, dee

addendum: here's a jpeg of the newest re-do. I made a few other changes on the hair and also lightened the boy's teeth - good suggestion! If you want the tiff, just let me know, but I thought by now you probably have what you need.

Dee Gallo
03-30-2009, 8:41 PM
Here is the file for you, Eric.

Have fun with it, dee

Bill Cunningham
03-31-2009, 9:10 PM
'And' don't forget to engrave it as a 'negative' image.. ;)

Tim Bateson
03-31-2009, 9:30 PM
Are you being "negative" again Bill? :p

Bill Cunningham
03-31-2009, 10:48 PM
Are you being "negative" again Bill? :p
Yup.. if your not negative, It's positive that the image will look like crp :D