laser engraving

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Hi all, I am planning to build humidor for a friend who will be retiring from military soon. We share one great hobby - fly fishing, actually he is my teacher for fly fishing.
I want to place a picture fly fishermen on the top. I don't have laser on engraving capability and will be asking here for somebody willing to do this for me. I would pay and provide wood for plate. Question what format picture will be better for this task.
This is a picture:
326006
Thank you, Ed.

[Mike Clarke]

CorelDraw is the default standard most laser engravers start with. Vector images are usually best, then bitmap. If a bitmap, then higher resolution and larger is better, not a 72 DPI thumbnail grabbed off the net.

I and other members here can do it, but you might as well look for someone close by you. You might get more attention in the Engravers Forum here.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Mike thank you for reply. I don't have CorelDraw on my iMac. I am using GIMP and can save in multiple formats. Which one will be acceptable for engraving machine?
Ed.

[Keith Outten]

Edward,

If you can provide a good quality bitmap that is approximately the same size that you need engraved that would certainly be acceptable. If the graphic needs to be enlarged it would be best to convert it to a vector drawing but don't just import the bitmap into Gimp and save it as an eps file, that won't improve the graphic at all as it won't be a vector file.

Your graphic is a very simple design that anyone who has a laser engraver should be able to convert easily if you don't have the expertise to do it correctly. The better question is what kind of wood will you use to make your humidor as not all wood species engrave well.

An EPS file can be imported into just about any graphics program.
.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Keith, thank you for good explanation.
I just downloaded GIMP and start using it, will see if I will be able to convert file to vector.
I am thinking to build humidor from jatobe. I am planning to engrave on oval piece of maple and template it.

Ed.


Edward,

If you can provide a good quality bitmap that is approximately the same size that you need engraved that would certainly be acceptable. If the graphic needs to be enlarged it would be best to convert it to a vector drawing but don't just import the bitmap into Gimp and save it as an eps file, that won't improve the graphic at all as it won't be a vector file.

Your graphic is a very simple design that anyone who has a laser engraver should be able to convert easily if you don't have the expertise to do it correctly. The better question is what kind of wood will you use to make your humidor as not all wood species engrave well.

An EPS file can be imported into just about any graphics program.
.