Mastering: Hair Line Redraws

[Jesse Anderson]

One issue i have came across since i got my Epilog Laser almost a year ago is Redrawing Hair Line Designs.

Customer Sends me a graphic and i have to outsource the work... This cuts into my profits.

Another issue i have is when a customer shows me a graphic on the internet that he/she would like engraved i often have trouble making a crisp clean graphic..

I was not very familiar with Corel Draw when i got my machine. It was a bit of a chore getting the basics.
I was more familiar with Adobe Photoshop.

Finally to my question... Does any one have any good resources for learning to create hairline graphics ?
It would be nice to be able to fully master it.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hi Jesse,

Most of the available vectorising software does a reasonable job, (R2V, WinTopo etc etc) but relies on fairly good input graphics to generate the final DXF / line art. Many work using the Zang / Suen or Stentiford algorithms but require quite a bit of tweaking to get a really good quality output. These days I outsource most of my conversion work to be redrawn in India using graphics tablets by human operators rather than bothering with hit and miss software. Even Corels conversion tool uses Stentiford and the output often has too many splines or grips / nodes.

If I need something quick I'll often redraw myself rather than outsource, using AutoCAD it takes a bit of time but is worth it for better quality jobs.

It's surprising how many clients think a 200 x 200 GIF is a great resource for what they want engraved ;)

best wishes

Dave

[Joe Hillmann]

Do a search for Bezier Tool, corelDraw on youtube there are a couple very good videos there showing how to use it and the keyboard commands that go with it. It allows much nicer and quicker hairline than any other method of manually tracing.

If the image you are trying to trace is "black and white" but when you zoom way in it has gray on the edges.....

right click, edit bitmap
That will bring you to Corel PHOTO PAINT

Click Image
Color mode
Black and white, 1-Bit

Select Line art, slide the slider to 150 or so
Hit OK
Close out of PHOTO PAINT, it will ask if you want to save, hit YES


Back in CorelDRAW

Right click on the bitmap again, select trace bitmap.
Trace
Trace by outline.

Close out of CorelTRACE, it will ask if you want to save, select YES

Back in corelDRAW,
Move the traced image off of the bitmap, delete the bitmap, if you need to make changes you can ungroup the new vector drawing, and adjust the nodes or do any vector adjustment you want to it.

This method also works for removing imperfections from bitmaps.

[Joe Hillmann]

Also watch the videos on youtube posted by engraving concepts 1, even the ones you don't think are of any use to you, they have lots and lots of information and tricks in them you wouldn't figure out on your own.

[Mike Null]

There is enough info on you tube to make you a graphics pro if you want to spend some time at it. I've found that CorelDraw will handle all the requirements of my engraving business.

If I don't have time or I judge a job to be more than I can handle I outsource it to a vector service--usually Excalibur in Canada. info@excaliburcreations.com

[matthew knott]

Im pretty good at redraws, a tablet and pen are much better that a mouse, that's my first tip, secondly I try to avoid doing them as it eats into my time, I linked to a guy that does redraws of an excellent quality for a frankly ridiculous price in the low dollars! There is simply no way you can value your time at less than he charges! Corel trace is ok if you follow Joes tip, the only thing I do different is change the image to b&q/ line art in coreldraw, no need to launch photopaint. Also vectormagic does a way better job than Coreltrace, it really does a great job! If vectormagic don't do it I sub it out and pay the $4 and spend my time more productively .

[Doug Novic]

Hope this helps...Corel will import Photoshop directly and preserve layers. If your more familiar with Photoshop (as am I) and getting use to Corel, this makes life easier.

[Jesse Anderson]

Thank you for the advice. Some one should compile a Cd of tutorial videos that are a must for beginners and intermediates....

For me i assume i will not use a large majority of the tools in corel draw ? Since laser engraving is limited graphics wise..


I am sure there are a few people on here using the same guy in india that does the $3-4 dollar redraws. He does it as easy as

I suppose though mums the word on that one. Would hate to have him swamped with work :-)..

I appreciate the advice. I was just making up my mind what i should do with my time this winter.

I am thinking YouTube, Tutorials, and Saw mill Creek.

My only obstacle is Corel Draw... These last 8 months i have pretty much learned on my own..Just messing with all the options and experimenting with the results.

I played guitar for about 7 years. Learned on my own no books and no classes. I came to a point that i could not get any better so i decided to take guitar lessons ... After 7 years of bad habits and permanent muscle memory.. The class was a failure... So i am trying to learn the right way rather than do unorthodox methods.