Engraving photos summary

[stan kern]

There has been a lot of info on handling photos and the preps required before egraving
I tested photograv (older one) one touch laser photo(trial copy) and corel draw and i feel they are all about the same
hit and miss, in my cases miss.
I read here about a program called gimp and its ok, a free download and http://youtu.be/TiEOXElDbHc shows the photo
prep
There is also info on background removal but i could not upload the pdf(too big)
Also i found a spot to download a beta test for background removal ,its done on line but it also seems ok(makers of vector magic)
called clippingmagic.com via Streamlex.com and for nowe its free too
Most free things that are so so but the gimp is ok and easy to try out different settings
I am bound bent to get good results of photo to wood

[Gary Hair]

Stan,
If you have had unacceptable results with everything that you have listed then I'm going to suggest that it isn't completely the fault of the programs. There are many factors that go into producing quality results on wood and the program is just one part, and, in my opinion, not the most important part. The picture is THE most important part, some pics just won't work and most won't work well without some amount of pre-processing and improper pre-processing will never give good results irregardless of the program. The material you are engraving onto is next, some wood just isn't suitable for pictures - Oak is horrible, cherry is good, red alder is good, some maple is good. Other materials, marble, anodized aluminum, acrylic, and painted tiles, work fantastic and are actually hard to get wrong. Next are the settings you use - speed and power are critical and very different for each substrate, what works for cherry will produce horrible results on marble.
I would suggest that you pick one program (it really doesn't matter which one), get a suitable image, white ceramic tiles spray painted with black (because they are cheap), and get to experimenting. Pre-process the image as has been detailed here many times then run it through the program. Start with the settings the program recommends and vary the power to see what results you get. Don't mess with the image until you get this image looking as good as possible. After that, try some different settings in the program and run through the lasering process again until you get good results - compare with the first test. Continue until you get the best possible results.
I did a lot of pictures when I first had my laser and I got pretty nice results, acceptable to me and my customers were always happy, but it took a lot of testing and tracking the changes/results.

Good luck!

[stan kern]

thanks will do,and i do know its in the photo prep thats were i need to work and improve,but I feel one may not have to buy a program just use whats available

[stan kern]

is anodized aluminum jusy aluminum painted,ie aluminum rolls in home depot would that do for anodized alum(comes in 24 in rolls)

[Keith Upton]

Anodizing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodizing) is a chemical process to coat aluminum, so quite a bit different than painting aluminum.

[Dan Hintz]

is anodized aluminum jusy aluminum painted,ie aluminum rolls in home depot would that do for anodized alum(comes in 24 in rolls)

Not the same thing, as Keith mentioned, but I like the rolls of flashing just the same. I had to order a roll of white/black as they typically only carry brown in my local BORG. If memory serves, it was around $80 for a 100' roll of 2'-wide black/white. Detail-wise I'd say it's nearly on par with anodized.

[Keith Upton]

Dan, can you give a link to the material you are talking about?

[stan kern]

how where you cutting it,because if you cut it by hand it can curl a bit ,but it lasers fantastic
Home depot carry white black and brown .i also have grey...but would like to be able to cut it smooth on my own
it would save taking it somewhere to have it sheared
Nice to know other use it

[stan kern]

when you do the black painted tiles do you use a negative image or just engrave at different power and scan gap

[Gary Hair]

when you do the black painted tiles do you use a negative image or just engrave at different power and scan gap

Either that or get black tiles and paint them white - same end result with two ways to accomplish it.

[Dan Hintz]

Dan, can you give a link to the material you are talking about?

Here's one example:
http://www.amazon.com/White-Black-Aluminum-Trim-Coil/dp/B000KKK6JA

[Keith Upton]

Thanks. This stuff looks interesting. What type of projects do you guys use if for?

[Keith Upton]

I just noticed that this stuff comes in different coatings and one of them is PVC... would need to make sure not to get that kind. It also appears to come in 61 different colors (http://www.amerimax.com/pdf/Amerimax_Gutter_TrimCoilColorSheet.pdf)! All neutral colors, but still that's pretty good.

[Kev Williams]

I'm no laser-photo genius by any means, in fact after 12 years I still can't produce a satisfactory image on glass. I'm pretty good with photo's on stainless, sometimes... other times I can't get a decent image. To be fair, the image itself you're trying to reproduce is the problem.

As for wood, I've found that good photo's on wood are not created by laser alone. Decent photo's on wood require one basic accessory:

A piece of sandpaper. The photo below is of my favorite wood photo engraving. In many eyes it's probably not all that great, but with the different woods involved and the original copy of the photo I started with, it came out great IMO. However, it was nothing but an unrecognizable brown blob until I started hitting it with 400 sandpaper. Suddenly the 'white' started showing up, and with it a lot of detail...

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Here's my best SS engraving, this is a 12x18" SS memorial plaque, which turned out extremely well. But it came at the cost of several adjustments to the original photos. And, I don't have any 'sophisticated' photo software. I use ancient PhotoSuite, Corel Paint, and Windows photo gallery.

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Back to wood, I attempted to reproduce the above on an oak plaque. Oak is HORRIBLE for photos, because of the grain. However, the sandpaper brought the details out! You can go too far with sandpaper if you're not careful, but for the most part it's a pretty easy skill to learn! :)

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Oh yeah, the other accessory for wood-- stain, or whatever else to add to the wood to darken the dark! Sometimes it's necessary! This pic is of a "just fooling around" photo, it's engraved on an old piece of scrap wall paneling. When I took it out of the laser, you couldn't even tell that it'd been engraved, there was no color change at all. I have some almost-black stain, which I rubbed into the surface, waited about a minute, and started sanding.... It's actually a very coarse halftone photo, but from 6' away, doesn't look too bad!

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===============

Now, if I could only learn to put a decent photo on glass! ;)

[Dan Hintz]

As for wood, I've found that good photo's on wood are not created by laser alone. Decent photo's on wood require one basic accessory:

A piece of sandpaper. The photo below is of my favorite wood photo engraving. In many eyes it's probably not all that great, but with the different woods involved and the original copy of the photo I started with, it came out great IMO. However, it was nothing but an unrecognizable brown blob until I started hitting it with 400 sandpaper. Suddenly the 'white' started showing up, and with it a lot of detail...

Kev,

I'm going to take a stab and say the sandpaper was bringing out the white from a big blob because it was removing soot. You could probably skip the sandpaper altogether if you mask the wood, engrave from the bottom up (assuming your machine has that option), and ensure you have a good dust collection system with a fast airflow. All of the soot gets trapped on the mask and not back on each line you just engraved.

[stan kern]

a lot of good ideas here (like the black tile painted white --tried the white tile painted black and it went well), i am finally having good luck with the photos ,better than ever.
The black anodized alum is still not good ,i get washed out light or grey
I am not having good luck with glass do you treat the photo prep for glass like anodized aluminum(negative)
My problem with photos was they need to be 250 dpi abd i was using too much power
Are you guys coating the stainless steel?
Also found that cherry and maple are the best for woods and backgrounds from photos have to be removed

[Chris J Anderson]

Hi Stan,
I would guess that when people here talk of lasering to stainless steel, they are using the cermark products to mark the metal.
Plenty of info on this forum about cermark and tips on best methods to use it.

Cheers,
Chris

[stan kern]

the wood ones engraved turned out pretty good (cherry) maple looked ok too
The black painted 3x3 tile is not bad ,the anodized aluminum black needs some work not really happy with it
Not sure how to handle the glass (reverse image like the tile??)
Also would like to try acrylic
Did try a white masonite but that did not go well
looks like you can do these quite small possibly a tree with each leaf being a familly member





100 watt laser ,chiller and rotary attachment 36x24 logilase

[Scott Shepherd]

Stan, I think you're making progress, but in my opinion, your issue is with the photo processing end. In my opinion, the laser doesn't generally like high contrast photos. In your video, you mention making things have a higher contrast. I have found that the laser likes a very flat, dull looking photo. When you are done processing it, it should looked washed out with very little solid white or solid black. In your last photos of the tiles aluminum, if you adjusted the "highlights" in the photos down, so they were a lot more gray, and then adjusted the shadows (black) up, so they are no where near as dark as they are, I think you'll get a MUCH better result. The laser wants subtle changes, not real highs and lows, in my opinion. And of course, there are situations where you want highs and lows, but as a general rule I don't think photos like this want that.

Bring the faces down so they are grayer and bring the black up so it's grayer and see how that works.

[stan kern]

Ok will try and tone down to a dull look and try that, I am making notes as i go along and tearing up the ones gone by ,there is such a learning curve with all this cnc equipment

[stan kern]

starting to turn out ok

[Jim Kysor]

TRy Fast Stone Imaging free and works well.

[Scott Shepherd]

The girl is still blown out, in my opinion. Here's what I think it should look more like. It's not perfect by any means, but I literally pulled a photo off google and spent about 90 seconds with it.

I'd have to engrave it and see what needed to be tweaked, but this is where I'd start, with a look like this. Like I mentioned, there are always exceptions to the rule and there are always materials that do like higher contrasts, so I can't make a blanket statement that if you do A, then B will work perfectly. In this example, there are hotspots on her face, like her forehead that are going to be blown out. I'd use the dodge and burn tools to make the hotspots darker and the dark parts lighter if I felt there was an issue.

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I had a guy want a photo engraved on acrylic. It was a black man, a pastor, wearing black clothes, with a white collar, and black hair. I said "He's going to be invisible". I had to tone all the blacks way back to where everything was gray, and then it engraved great. Stay away from really dark or really bright things and don't use black jeeps to judge your progress :)

[stan kern]

appreciate your 2 pictures, but doing this takes time you just cannot grab a photo and engrave it,so it is difficult to price out ,could be simple could be a nightmare
" alot of good ideas here " alot of trials
Did you use photoshop for your preps

thanks

stan kern

also the girl above was glass ,the one way up is on cherry

[Scott Shepherd]

Absolutely right Stan, it could be a nightmare. I'd bet a ham sandwich that if you took a poll on this forum of how many people make a living or significant part of their income from engraving photos and you'd find the results pretty staggering. My guess is it would be in the 1-2% range.

I'm in touch with a fair number of people that run businesses with the laser being their main source of income. Not a single one of them does photos, other than, like us, random jobs for family, friends, or good customers that want a favor.

If there's a way to make good money doing photos, I don't know what it would be. Photos vary too much. One person brings a great photo, the next person brings the wedding photo of the white dress and black tux setup that's in 99% of all wedding photos. The dress will be blown out the groom's suit will disappear completely and he'll look like a floating head with hands. It's just too much variance to make presets or methods that work consistently.

Yes, I used Photoshop, but gimp will work fine to do what I did. I just converted to black and white, then moved the levels sliders around a little.

[Isaac Clarke]

I make most of my money with glass and mirror engravings, I do it entirely in PS within around 5 mins. Here are a few examples, I cant show most of the good ones as they are customer pictures but if you want me to try and prepare a file for you let me know :)




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[Bert Kemp]

If you want to give a photo a little different look try Rub & Buff
This is one I did with Autumn Gold rub & Buff on a black ceramic tile.I think it gives it a sort of bronzy look. Notice the perfectly focused finger print.LOL
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[Scott Shepherd]

I make most of my money with glass and mirror engravings,

Isaac, I'd say you are one of the few I mentioned in the percentage that makes consistent money with it.

[stan kern]

well its loads of fun and there so many software packages that claim to make things easier and just when i think i have a set path and this is it ,something changes
and i am back to the start

[Raphael Weil]

bumping this because it's on topic for me.

What do you guys finish wood with when you photo engrave? This isn't really a part of my business at all, but I'll do the odd custom job for friends and family. With my art work I put poly on maple, and I learned last night that that's not going to fly for nice photo engraves. I finish the wood because the stock is wide (10-12" wide) at the boards are planed to 3/4". I don't want those cupping long term.

Do you guys just leave your wood bare, or is there something else that I can use that still allows for good rastering with Jarvis (which I like for my photos)?

[Bert Kemp]

Why do you say polys no good? I use it all the time to finish wood never had a problem.


bumping this because it's on topic for me.

What do you guys finish wood with when you photo engrave? This isn't really a part of my business at all, but I'll do the odd custom job for friends and family. With my art work I put poly on maple, and I learned last night that that's not going to fly for nice photo engraves. I finish the wood because the stock is wide (10-12" wide) at the boards are planed to 3/4". I don't want those cupping long term.

Do you guys just leave your wood bare, or is there something else that I can use that still allows for good rastering with Jarvis (which I like for my photos)?

[Raphael Weil]

Why do you say polys no good? I use it all the time to finish wood never had a problem.

I tried a solid piece of maple with a coat of poly on it and the results were atrocious. Same exact file on a maple thin that had no poly and it looked great. Really not sure why. Wasn't expecting one coat to produce that.