engrave lab or corel draw

[justin lear]

hi, i got a uls v4.60 and will be laser engraving turkey calls about the most extreme graphic on these calls that i will be doing is a picture of a struting gobbler ( which i have no idea of the best picture that will work for that) and the rest of the turkey calls will have mainly just writing on them and will be done in a fixture with about 16 calls at a time... dont have the laser yet but will be here friday.. there is a considerable price difference in the two programs. i will be engraving about 20k turkey calls a year... all the calls are wooden.. the sales rep seems to think that engrave lab is better program...


thanks

[Bert Kemp]

Well I really have never used engravelab, but most people here use corel, and for what your saying you want to do corel should have no problems.

[Robert Tepper]

I use Corel X6 every day and from what you are describing I can not imagine why you would need engrave lab. Possibly your sales person will make more sales commission on this extra software.
Just my personal opinion.

Robert

[Mike Null]

The only reason I can think of that a rep would recommend Engravlab over CD is that he is getting commission or has no clue about graphics programs. CD surpasses Engravlab in virtually every aspect of graphics. Not to mention that there are hundreds of free tutorials for CD and plenty of help here if you need it.

Then wait until you want to upgrade (let's say you're on XP and want to move to Win 8) get ready for another $600 to $800.

I had to buy it to operate my Newing Hall machine and I'm still aggravated after 7 years.

[Bill Stearns]

Justin -
I vote you go with CorelDraw, too. As fore-mentioned, way easier to find assistance: tutorials, etc. Plus, 'think the CD Suite includes Corel Paint, doesn't it? May come in handy? BTW: don't know if this will prove helpful, but I'll mention it anyway. Using Photoshop & CD I have laser engraved plenty of hunting & wildlife photographs - getting turkey feathers to show up and engrave nicely can take some work. I use Photoshop to colorize each separate feather - so, that it differentiates one feather from another when engraved. Also, have learned by "smart sharpening" selected areas (w/PS), I can accentuate and bring out body texture on dark birds 'n animals. My 2-cents. BTW: if 20K means 20,000 - wow! what a great opportunity for you! Best of luck!

Bill

[Dave Gates]

Another vote for CorelDraw. We've had engravelab for about 8 years and some days it's still a challenge to use.

Mike, we had to buy the new engravelab software after getting new computers recently and it was $650. If anyone is upgrading their software, don't forget to upgrade the controller firmware too.