photo engraving

[Nadia Zois]

i want to engrave photos and i have tried photograv but either i don't know what i am doing or it isn't as good as everyone says it is. the results were not as well as i hoped for.

are there any other programs you suggest? or any methods i can use in photoshop?

i don't have tons of money. so buying an expensive program is not something i can do right now, so if you have tips for doing it in coreldraw or photoshop that would be awesome :)

[Bill Cunningham]

I find many of the standard parameters in photograv work quite well, the cherry setting is the swiss army knife of the software. anything you run through it will look OK.. With photograv, most of the results depend on pre-processing the photo before running through photograv. I think the biggest problem some folks run into, is poor resolution of the original photo. i.e. a 72 dpi .jpg will not produce a good photo engraving. I won't even bother with anything less than 1500 x 2000 ppi for a basic 5x7" engraving which equates to about 300 ppi and try to avoid .jpgs altogether unless your sure they are right from the camera and have never been changed and saved (they just keep getting worse with every re-compression)..

If you search the creek, you will find a step by step procedure that has been posted several times over the last few years. This procedure works in Corel photopaint, as well as it works in the photoshop instructons listed, and will convert a good grayscale image into a engrave able binary file pretty close to what comes from photograv .. However, you will still need a good quality photo to get good quality results..

[David Sacks]

Bill,
I too have not been able to get anything but fair results.
I have searched, and searched - would you mind sharing? -
I assume convert to greyscale, and I have tried flattening (lower contrast) - I have tried increasing the detail in the 85%+ blacks and in the 15% and less whites - but still seem to produce mud.

Have tried all sorts of powers, and speeds - and DPI. The best seems to be 1200dpi, image AND laser - but of course very slow.

Would you or someone mind - really take a photo through the process?

Thanks from ALL of us newbees..
David

[James Jaragosky]

Bill,
I too have not been able to get anything but fair results.
I have searched, and searched - would you mind sharing? -
I assume convert to greyscale, and I have tried flattening (lower contrast) - I have tried increasing the detail in the 85%+ blacks and in the 15% and less whites - but still seem to produce mud.

Have tried all sorts of powers, and speeds - and DPI. The best seems to be 1200dpi, image AND laser - but of course very slow.

Would you or someone mind - really take a photo through the process?

Thanks from ALL of us newbees..
David
It would help greatly for you to show us both the photo you started with and a picture of your sub-par results.
What material are you using?
What dpi was the original photo saved at?
Are the settings for the image dpi set in photograv the same as the image was saved as?
Did you re size the image after you prepossessed it in photograv?

Jim J.

[David Sacks]

I will put some images together and tell you what I did- in the morning
David

[Bill Cunningham]

Bill,
I too have not been able to get anything but fair results.
I have searched, and searched - would you mind sharing? -
I assume convert to greyscale, and I have tried flattening (lower contrast) - I have tried increasing the detail in the 85%+ blacks and in the 15% and less whites - but still seem to produce mud.

Have tried all sorts of powers, and speeds - and DPI. The best seems to be 1200dpi, image AND laser - but of course very slow.

Would you or someone mind - really take a photo through the process?

Thanks from ALL of us newbees..
David

Hi David.. Some basic rules that work for me is:
It's absolutely imperative that you start with a 'good' resiloution photograph, that is capable of good contrast when converted from colour to 8bit gray. This is what I have on my website so my customers can have some guidance Wood is the easiest thing to start with so this will be for wood.
Choosing your photograph is the most important step. Not all photographs can be laser etched, or engraved. Photographs that are to be etched with a laser, require 'contrast'. In other words, once converted to black and white (the laser does not etch in colour) there must be 'visible' difference between colours. Dark coloured clothing, seen against a dark coloured background may be perfectly obvious in a colour photograph, but once converted, the black and white (black etches, white does not) the difference will not be so obvious. A dark blue suit against a dark brown background, 'may' result in a 'head' floating in a dark background. For example see the samples below
http://www.technisoft1.com/images/Square.jpg <Before converting http://www.technisoft1.com/images/squareEng.jpg< After Engraving
As you can see, there is not much difference between the colours after etching.
Your photograph must also be 'high resolution'. We can scan a 'glossy' photograph, however, photographs printed on textured stock, no matter how fine the texture, may not give satisfactory results. The textured areas have a tendency to cast light back at the scanner, resulting in spots, fuzziness, or banding when etched. Digital photographs are acceptable providing they are at least 2000 x 1500 pixels or the highest resolution obtainable from a minimum 3 mega pixel camera. .JPGs 'can' be used, but please keep in mind that EVERY TIME you crop, manipulate, or change a .jpg AND save it as a .jpg it will get worse and worse with every load and re-save, until it gets to the point, where is pretty well unusable for anything but the web..

Once I have the photograph, I usually load it into photo-paint, under size I click 'to fit' (this shows me the whole thing on the screen) and under the image menu, I convert it to a 8bit GS. I resize and re-sample the picture to 300 dpi at the size I want. Then I use the Adjust menu and brightness/contrast/intensity adjustment, until 'I' feel the picture has good definition and detail, as well as a pleasing contrast.. This is entirely subjective, and your tastes may vary. I then save it as a .bmp (I use the older photograv that only accepts bmp's) I then load photograv, and bring in the photo. for wood I 'always' choose the vertical grain cherry setting and process the picture. I then save the engraving file using the filename+Eng to identify it from the others. I then import the Eng file into
Corel, position it where I want it on the table (my screen size is usually my tablesize) My machine is somewhere between 35 & 45 watts and on my machine I etch the photo at 600 dpi/35 speed/100% power and I get pretty constant results on wood.. For cheap testing here is a sample I just did last week on Pine.. Which is supposed to be poor for photographs. This came from a retirement plaque a customer wanted made from a old cupboard door (it had some meaning!) I censored the finger gesture, but I'm sure you can figure it out.. He just retired from a police force..
This was a pretty straight forward quick and dirty conversion from a coloured .jpg using basically what I said above..