engraving granite engravelab photolaser plus

[john swank]

I have a question. I got my first laser about a month ago. Epilog Helix 40watt. I am using Engravelab Photolaser plus software to deal with photos. As far as looking at back posts I am to page 146. This my first attempt at trying to put a picture on absolute black granite tile purchased at lowes ($4.98, 12" x 12"). There should be 2 photos attached. The image is the same size in both. On the granite, all 4 images were run at 300 dpi, 25 speed, and 100 power. All were run with the Stucci setting. Starting in the upper left the color photo was processed using engravelabs Granite high contrast.plr, The upper right was he granite.plr, the lower left was the Marble Invert 300DPI Epilog.plr and the lower right was with Marble.plr. The photo on the cherry was run at 600 DPI, 60 speed, 100 power using the Cherry hi detail.plr. I have had good luck using wood and mirrors. Although the photo of the images on the granite is terrible, so are the engravings. Any advice on how to improve? my thought is to do the same thing again with the same settings but convert the color photo to grayscale before doing the stuff listed above. Am I on the right track? Thanks.

[john swank]

Ok so the photos did not attach. Let me try that again.248622248623

[Ross Moshinsky]

On granite you're going to want to invert the image. Second thing you're going to want to do is increase the speed quite a bit and possibly lower the power.

You're running way too strong of a power. If you were engraving text into granite, those settings would work because you want a deep, long lasting etch. With photos, you can't apply the same thinking. I'd try 50 power and 100 speed and work from there. Use the same granite option until the image starts looking good. That will at least allow you to dial in speed and power. After you get that dialed in, then you can start looking at which setting works best. I'd suggest testing a few different types of images too. That way you have a baseline knowing that a person may look best using X settings but a building may look best using Y settings. The more samples you do, the more comfortable you will be with the process. The last step of the process is to come up with a realistic amount of time it takes you to do this process. I assume you want to sell this service. You need to come up with some idea how long it will take so you know how much to charge.

[john swank]

The majority of my business is in wood. Mirrors and glass make up the rest of it. The granite project is for my first grandchild who was born a few days ago. Somewhere back I saw a piece of granite that hade the name, date, time, weight, length, and picture on it and I wanted to do something similar for her. Thanks. By inverting do you mean I should use the marble invert.plr and try different power and speed settings or should I be doing something different?

[Ross Moshinsky]

It's hard to tell since the photos are so over powered, but I'd guess that the software is setup to invert the image when the granite option is selected.

Take your photo. Process it with a granite setting. Run it at 50 power, 100 speed, 300dpi. If it looks too dark, decrease the power. If it looks too light, increase the power.

[john swank]

Thank You. I will post a picture when I get a chance this afternoon to make the new runs.

[john swank]

Here is a picture with some new runs. Thanks for getting me going in the right direction. The upper left was run using the granite program. The rest were done at various laser settings using the marble invert program. The ones on he left side in the color photo the background is almost as dark as the head. The ones on the right the background is much lighter than the head. Again sorry for my lack of photo skills.248695