Acrylic Engraving Quality

[William Milligan]

I've created a few displays with LED lighted bases in the past. My sister is getting ready to marry again and so I thought I might create here a cake topper...I noticed some cake toppers at: http://www.illumitops.com/artemeusdesign/whats-new and see that the show some pretty detailed acrylic work...they even show a couple of toppers that actually have pictures of the couples on them. I've never had any success trying to get a decent picture into acrylic.....anyone have any pointers on how to make this work?...in the past I've had great success with clip art and non-detailed images but not sure how to make the detail of a picture work in acrylic. Thanks for your advice/assistance.

[Mike Null]

Engraving photos has never been one of my favorite things to do so I only do so when forced but I have reasonable success using my simple method of removing the background, converting to black and white and adjusting for brightness and contrast.

I use only PhotoPaint and make no claim to producing professional quality though I believe it's quite good all things considered.

For more professional results Dee makes excellent recommendations.

[Dee Gallo]

William,

If you've never done a photo in acrylic, you really need to do some test runs. I recommend using the Gold Method for prepping the picture, it will get you started. The photo must be reversed of course, and done from the back to look its best.

Here are some lit and some not lit - you have to think about how the thing will be viewed. I made the Lucy light with Photograv because it was going to be seen from far away and needed a lot of contrast and be easy to "read". The 4 girls were done with a Jarvis screen for an edgy look, the big family was just a bitmapped image tweaked with the Gold Method. The 3 kids were done in PhotoShop because they were put together from 3 different pics.

I'm no expert at this, the master is Frank Corker. Bill Cunningham is also fantastic with photo prep. Check out some of their posts for some good advice.

Good luck, dee

[Bill Gailey]

Dee, what is this "Gold" Method you reference?

[Martin Boekers]

Here's a link, this was created by one of our own here at SMC, Rodne Gold.

www.dogcollarlabor.com/smc/index.html (http://www.dogcollarlabor.com/smc/index.html)

Here is another great link for photos,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yllZTBA0HO0&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yllZTBA0HO0&feature=related)

[Bill Gailey]

Can this also be accomplished in Corel?

[William Milligan]

I would think so Bill...just like you would process a Photograv image (you just don't make any changes after it is processed by photograv/gold method) but, of course, I haven't tried the gold method yet.

Dee...what sort of DPI settings do you use for these pictures in acrylic. I've always been a little hesisant on using too high (600) as I've figured it would kind of overwork the Acrylic.

Thanks.

[Dee Gallo]

Dee...what sort of DPI settings do you use for these pictures in acrylic. I've always been a little hesisant on using too high (600) as I've figured it would kind of overwork the Acrylic.

William,

I use 100 speed/30-35 power/400 dpi for those on my 35w. Of course, with your level of power, you'd have to adjust to suit your machine.

~ dee

[Dee Gallo]

Bill,

I do not use CD for photo prep, but I'm sure it can be done using CorelPaint. If you look at the macro for the Gold Method, you should be able to figure out what to do in Corel to adjust contrast, brightness, inverting, etc.

cheers, dee

[Bill Cunningham]

Here's Rodney's original post from 2007, (before the script was developed)on how to do it manually using just about anything.. This step by step, also works well with corel paint

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?50226-Plugin-that-does-what-photograv-does&p=510491#post510491

[William Milligan]

Thanks Dee/Bill for the info...I will do some test runs on some photos...I'd like to get it right...I love the way LEDs under Acrylic brings the Acrylic to life...