Photo Engraving and pricing advice

[Larry Folk]

Hello all,
I am fairly new to the forum, having only posted a few times, but I have been reading as many of the old threads as I can trying to learn all that there is to know about lasering.
Attached are some photos of awards that I did today with the 1-Touch Laser photo software. This is my first attemp with photos and I am curious about how this software stacks up against the other photo software out there. Doing these with this software was very easy.
I just saved the processed file and copied it into my corel file and lasered on my Epilog laser. The photos don't look as good as they really came out.

My other question is what would some of you charge a client for doing these? They are all Alder wood plaques (5)-7x9, (2)-8x10, (9)-9x12 and one 10x14. I provided the photos and came up with the design of the plaques. The gold tags are 1/16" lasered plastic.

I am a registered architect, but looking to add an engraving business to suppliment our income since construction is in the dumps.

Thanks

[Dan Mazurak]

Asking what to charge is a flawed question, a person with a Manhattan storefront would charge alot more than someone in the Iowa country that sold via internet.

Figure your costs and add a profit that you are comfortable with, that is the right price to charge.

[Andrew Mammoliti]

Hey larry, nice work there, you can even take out the background on some of the photos as well. I have 1 Touch as well and find it very easy to use as well. I also have Photograv 3, but I can not get it to give me the same results as 1 touch. :)

[Terry Swift]

Larry,

Dan is right. The "perceived" value by the customer is where it gets tricky in pricing. As your materials may have cost you $11-$12 and it took you probably 10-15 minutes to do them - I'd give a WAG of about $30 in your area or mine (DFW). We can't see where you are located; so making a real estimate is tough.

The plaques look pretty good at face value and as we all probably know - scanning / photo's don't show the real thing.

Keep practicing, learning, and reading the Creek. So much helpful advice here too. :D:)

[Tim Bateson]

Larry, You may want to try the dithering functions of the Epilog driver. Since discovering these functions, I haven't been forced to use PhotoGrav in over a year now & I get excellent results.

[Larry Bratton]

Larry,
How much time and material did you devote to the project? A markup of at least 30-40% on the material plus machine time of (debatable) $2.00-$2.50 per minute. You also had time in the setup of the artwork, and that will be something you have to establish. If your an architect, then you know the value of your time. This assumes you don't have some sort of expensive overhead like paying for a store front etc. Hope this helps.

[Dee Gallo]

Welcome to the Creek, Larry! You look like you've gotten a great start with your laser. I do not have 1-touch, but your photo came out well by my eye. It's hard to see in the photo, but the detail looks good. I use PhotoShop and PhotoGrav, and the results are similar... it all depends on the original, your retouching skills and matching settings to the substrate. If 1-touch removes the first two things, you have a nice easy system!

If you decide to start playing with photos (removing backgrounds, making montages, etc.) you will have to learn more about a program like PhotoShop or CorelPaint, but as long as you have good photos to start with you are all set.

One thing that bothers me is that the layout is a bit fussy looking due to the vertical line elements on either side of the words at the bottom. The words are quite dynamic by themselves and don't benefit from the delicate decoration. I think they'd like some space. That's just my opinion of course. Another thing is the underlining of the name at the top...not needed for emphasis and too thin for impact.

As far as pricing goes I don't do awards so I can't comment but maybe some of the more experienced awards guys will chime in here. Dan's comment is right on, though. Call around some of the awards shops in your area and ask them for a quote on a similar sized award, then you'll know what the local market is.

cheers, dee

[Martin Boekers]

Photos can sometimes be a tough sell, depending upon the area you live in (as others have said)
Also sometimes the club's budget will dictate how you may price. You'll find that many will like it
, but not want to pay the price for it. It can be tough when figuring out
what you can sell a piece for.


It can be tough when you price a couple dollars a minute for laser time.
say 3 minutes for both plastic
pieces ($6) plus say 15 minutes on the main plaque ($30) $10 are so to lay it out. 8x10 Alder plaque ($8 mark up to $15),
Plastic and tape ($1.50), give or take that brings you to $60 are so for an 8x10 plaque.

How many club's can afford it? It's hard to say, If you haven't talked price with them yet, you'll find out quickly!:D

One thing you'll discover is that the more efficient you become, and the larger quantity of plaques
you buy at a time is when you save money from the time you spend and the quantity discounts do add up.

The time you spend with a customer also adds up more time spent less $$$ in your pocket.

Being an Architect, you may want to explore model making, many firms have a laser at their shop now.


Good luck with this!

You'll find now that you have a laser, you will never be the same!:p

Marty

[Ron Thompson]

Marty,

What did it cost you for the 1-Touch program?

Ron Thompson
San Jose, CA

[David Fairfield]

Welcome to the Creek, Larry! You look like you've gotten a great start with your laser. I do not have 1-touch, but your photo came out well by my eye. It's hard to see in the photo, but the detail looks good. I use PhotoShop and PhotoGrav, and the results are similar... it all depends on the original, your retouching skills and matching settings to the substrate. If 1-touch removes the first two things, you have a nice easy system!

If you decide to start playing with photos (removing backgrounds, making montages, etc.) you will have to learn more about a program like PhotoShop or CorelPaint, but as long as you have good photos to start with you are all set.

One thing that bothers me is that the layout is a bit fussy looking due to the vertical line elements on either side of the words at the bottom. The words are quite dynamic by themselves and don't benefit from the delicate decoration. I think they'd like some space. That's just my opinion of course. Another thing is the underlining of the name at the top...not needed for emphasis and too thin for impact.

As far as pricing goes I don't do awards so I can't comment but maybe some of the more experienced awards guys will chime in here. Dan's comment is right on, though. Call around some of the awards shops in your area and ask them for a quote on a similar sized award, then you'll know what the local market is.

cheers, dee

Ditto

Everything works except the little Victorian vertical bar decorations. Out of place with the modern jets, and the bold graphics need no assistance.

Photoshop is super useful for applications like this, and once you get past the learning curve its real fast and easy. It really expands your pool of useful photos, too, and that all saves time and increases profit.

Dave

[Larry Folk]

To all,

I belong to the club that I made these for and I did them for $625.00.
My material costs for the 8x10 plaques was $8.38 and I billed them at $35.00 each which leaves me $26.62 gross profit. It took about 15 minutes to do the design layout and about 15 minutes of lasering.

I have been buying plaques from Smoke-Wood as they seem to have the best prices and I usually order more than I need to have some in stock.

The 1-touch photo software, I downloaded the free 30 day trial from Universal Laser. I do not know how much it costs. I wish Epilog had the same 30 day download for their version of photo software. I would hate to have to buy a Universal product for my Epilog laser.

I took the plaques to the club meeting tonight and they were a big hit,
even with the lines next to the E-Jet logo.

One of the items that I want to work on are architectural models. I have a rather large workshop for my giant scale r/c airplanes so I have the space and tools for that business. I have not seen too many old posts about architectural models. If anyone is doing this I would like to find out as much as possible as to how its going.

I am also designing and cutting my own giant scale r/c kits.

Larry

[Andrew Mammoliti]

Marty,

What did it cost you for the 1-Touch program?

Ron Thompson
San Jose, CA

In Canada 299.00

[Martin Boekers]

I wasn't aware that it was a stand alone program that would work
on an Epilog.

For some reason I thought It was part of the driver.


Marty

[Chris DeGerolamo]

I cannot tell from the photo, but if they are not already, you may want to consider (on next the job)etching out underneath the gold labels to the depth of your material, essentially flush mounting them to the board. Sorry I do not have any advice on pricing. As you can see, opinions differ.

[Terry Swift]

Martin,

That was my thought as 1-Touch is ULS, not Epilog and Epilog recommends EngraveLab stuff. But if it works, more power to him / them.

You can get the 30 Day Trial on ULS's website and I think actually buying it is like $99 US.

If that plaque could sell for $300 in Canada - I'm in the wrong country. Of course your material cost is a bit more than the U.S.; but that kind of mark-up wouldn't work here unless that was real 24k gold plates in there that I'm aware of. His price is pretty fair and I do the 8 x 10 Red Alders for about $50 depending on the customer and how much walking distance I think I can get out of it. I may sacrifice $5 or something like that to win a customer base larger than the one person or group. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. That's life, eh'! (couldn't resist) :cool:;)

[Larry Bratton]

Hey Terry, thought you would be in a boat! I was looking to see if I saw your laser floating down the street. You didn't suffer any flood damage? Hope not.

[Terry Swift]

Larry,

Almost. Parts of Arlington were floating away; but my area didn't get hit that bad and we're not in a low lying area. We do have a drainage canal out of our backyard that sits maybe 10 feet below the bottom of our fence and it got I'd say within 2 feet of reaching it. There was a raging river back there and the water was clipping about Whitewater Category 1. I've got pictures I'll post, as it's wild looking. :)

Then about 1 hour later - it was all gone.

[Larry Bratton]

Terry,
Good, glad your ok. Sure looked wild on TV.

[mike berry]

The Universal 1 touch is $250. I have played with it with my New Hermes with decent results. The big deal is figuring out the DIP and speed/power combo. I have found Ed Williams an absolute professional, VERY helpful. I have Photograv and the support is the most usless phonecall I have even made. I would use the CD for a coaster, about all it's good for. I am playing with just using Corel.