relief engraving help / advice with tree image

[Graham Taylor]

Hi all,

I am hoping that someone can help me with an image for relief engraving a tree onto wood for a business card sample for a tree surgeon.

I have read the Trotec guide about greyscale images and had a google but just wondered if anyone had an image that they had used to good effect in the past.

Thanks in advance,

Graham

[Mike Null]

You might try Google images. If you find one you like convert it to grayscale and give it a try.

[Kev Williams]

Relief image on a business card? Not going to be a whole lot of relief to be had, not enough material thickness. Most clipart trees I've found tend to be too round, eating up too much real estate on the X axis. And relief engraving in general is a pain in the brain-- this is simple tree I found, top left is original, the other 3 renditions are about all the options you have for actual relief engraving. Bottom left might look okay, but the open areas in relation to the black areas doesn't look right. Lower right is the same as lower left but with the black inner fill removed. Might look okay engraved, but likely the laser is going to obliterate much of the detail. The upper right with tree within in the oval is the best option, as it's the only version guaranteed to leave the tree standing in relief, but you end up with an oval. You COULD reshape the oval to fit the tree shape better, just takes time...
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I found this tree, good shape, it's more tall than wide, looks like a tree should look (IMO), I put it in CorelPaint and cranked the 'hightlights' full blast and added brightness which added contrast, and it was small so I upscaled it a bit. This won't engrave in relief, and it's just a bitmap still, but engraving this as-is with your Trotec should look very good...

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[Graham Taylor]

Thanks for the replies - I think I am going to talk him out of it when I see him on Thursday

This really is a very helpful forum so thanks again :)