Photoengraving Problem

[John Rivers]

Hello everyone, I've looked at these forums for a while - they are a great resource and everyone seems very helpful and friendly.

I have a Pinnacle M-60 and am trying to use it to engrave photos onto Black China Marble. From the advertisements and pictures of other peoples' works that I've seen, I notice that my engravings seem to be of much lower quality than theirs. Do you have any suggestions on how I can change the settings of my machine or software (I use PhotoGrav) in order to clarify the image?

[Rodne Gold]

Depends where the quality issues manifest themselves and what they are , can you give some indication of this as well as an indication of the size and the amount of pixels (x and y) that the original has. Your issues could be a myriad of things.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi John;
Welcome to the Creek. You're right- lots of great folks here and lots of info.
Hopwever, without meaning to be sarcastic, we can't tell you how to get home unless we know where you are.
What is your current photo prep process? What settings are you using in Photo grav and on the laser? What marble are you using (source)?
Also, this subject has been extensively discussed on this forum -check out many previous posts regarding photos on black marble (use the search function).
George

[Kevin Huffman]

Hey John,
There is a lot of good information to be had here. Searching through previous post can help a lot. Another option is to post a sample image that you are talking about. Then we could open it up and give some suggestions on what we would do to make it engrave ok for us.

[Barbara Sample]

Hello John,
I have found that with China black marble it engraves very white, and beautiful, but others such as laserbits marble, and lasersketch marble needs other settings and engraves a little grayer than the China Black one does.
I have found that if I change the settings in photograv to 10% strength and 75 % on the edges it comes out very nice with china marble. I use a setting of 40 speed and 100 power. I have a 30W Mercury LaserPro. With those settings I get a very nice result.

With Laserbits marble I use a setting of 100 speed and 30 power. It comes out nice. I do not change anything in PhotoGrav for that marble.

I hope that helps you. Let me know how you make out.

Barbara:)