Stumped again Help Please

[Bert Kemp]

A good Friend of mine from the Fighting 5th Marines had this on his Card. He asked if I could engrave it and gave me the business card. Well I got the image off the card and I got it vectorized But it like in a whole bunch of layers that include a back ground shade . As I strip down the layers the image deteriorates more and more. Is there anyway to get just the image and text. This is what I started with and where Im at now.446734446735Im trying to upload the CDR but says its to big and I forgot how to make it smaller

[Kev Williams]

Take your gray pic AS IS, open it in Corel Photo-Paint. Click on the IMAGE tab, scroll down to SPLIT CHANNELS TO-- choose CYMK-
It'll return 4 pics, one of them will be just black with a white background, like this-

446748

(I cropped the top & bottom)

[Bert Kemp]

I've clice every thing and don't see what your talking about446756

[Glen Monaghan]

Bert, I'm guessing you are using Windows 10 with the old X5 CorelDraw, and are suffering from the dreaded invisible menu bar. Due to some coding snafu, the color of menu bar text comes out the same as the background color when running that older pre-Windows 10 software in Windows 10, making the menu invisible until you mouse over it and temporarily change the default color to mouse-over color. The menu bar is in that clear band right below where it says Corel PhotoPaint at the top, and you will see the menu tabs (File, Edit, View, Image, Adjust, Effects, Mask, Object, Movie, Web, Tools, Window, Help) appear as you hover your mouse over them. So move your mouse pointer straight up between the Paste and Undo buttons, and you should see the word Image appear. You can left click to expand that tab and find Split Channels a bit more than half way down.

[Bert Kemp]

Thanx Glenn yes I have that x5 and I know about the hidden menu bar just never thought to look for the image tab there LOL , now lets see if I can some how save as a vector image .
Bert, I'm guessing you are using Windows 10 with the old X5 CorelDraw, and are suffering from the dreaded invisible menu bar. Due to some coding snafu, the color of menu bar text comes out the same as the background color when running that older pre-Windows 10 software in Windows 10, making the menu invisible until you mouse over it and temporarily change the default color to mouse-over color. The menu bar is in that clear band right below where it says Corel PhotoPaint at the top, and you will see the menu tabs (File, Edit, View, Image, Adjust, Effects, Mask, Object, Movie, Web, Tools, Window, Help) appear as you hover your mouse over them. So move your mouse pointer straight up between the Paste and Undo buttons, and you should see the word Image appear. You can left click to expand that tab and find Split Channels a bit more than half way down.

[Bert Kemp]

I give up
When I changed it to a vector I had a whole bunch of layers again and it just engraves a big black box. and if I uncheck so of the shades I loose the image.

[Ralph Undis]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fjsok8cbl5qam9d/Freedom.cdr?dl=0

[Kev Williams]

Here's a vectored version I made with my old Casmate----> 446782

and, here's a video of me doing the conversion ;)


https://youtu.be/UZRuOezsTJ0

[Bert Kemp]

Thanks Kev and everyone I'll give this one a try tomorrow

[Bert Kemp]

Kev you are the MAN!! once again you come thru. My biggest problem with this was trying to get one layer BXW , I was getting like 8 or 10 layers of shades of grey and one of those was the entire back ground which engrave the whole thing black.Thanks my friend will be happy. Now I just have to figure out what to engrave it on for him. I'm thinking maybe a Mirror or an Acrylic Light Base..

[Bert Kemp]

Thanks to all who helped on this. I'll never learn corel like some of you have. I just don't do enough engraving and what I do ..do is pretty simple stuff most the time. Thanks Guys

[Mark Sipes]

Glen I appreciate the new tip you just taught us all, Bert may not have understood the process but you saved me several steps I have been having to go through to get to the final step..

I have Corel X6 in Win 10 and have the same hidden bar.... what a pain....

Thanks again



.

[Bert Kemp]

Just thought I'd show the finish piece for my friend. never would have been able to finish this with out the help I got here once again thanks Guys. Now I wish I was a better photographer and got rid of the reflection.I did this on a sheet 22x12" clear cast acrylic that I painted one side glossy Black reversed the image and engraved the painted side then gave it a couple coat of clear lacquer .Oh I added the arrows as an after thought.heres the Image and the finished piece .447304447305

[Glen Monaghan]

You could have positioned the piece so that the window didn't reflect off it, and either use a light off to the side rather than on your phone/camera, and/or adjust the angle of the face to the camera so that the reflection is not there.

The engraved result is pretty neat but I really like the color of the original more, and the negative effect of engraving to white on black makes the engraved version a bit odd (for example, the white hoof and mostly black leg make it a bit difficult to realize that the shaft is a deer leg). Would be a perfect place to reverse print with UV ink printer. But I bet this image would come out pretty nice if you first sprayed the back with maybe a dark green or other complementary color of your choice, then engraved the black areas using a dither pattern and filled with black, engraved the brown areas with a dither pattern and filled with brown, engraved beads and filled with turquoise, and finally engraved the white areas (either left frosted or filled with white). Definitely more time and effort, but I bet it would really pop!

[Bert Kemp]

Thanks for the ideas but I don't have the knowledge or the resources to do that. Since 99% of what I do is donated and all materials are on my dime I try to keep things simple and cost effective as possible .As far as the Photo goes I'll try what you said and see how it goes. I did move the engraving all around the room and tried to angle it but no matter what I did I still got a reflection.
You could have positioned the piece so that the window didn't reflect off it, and either use a light off to the side rather than on your phone/camera, and/or adjust the angle of the face to the camera so that the reflection is not there.

The engraved result is pretty neat but I really like the color of the original more, and the negative effect of engraving to white on black makes the engraved version a bit odd (for example, the white hoof and mostly black leg make it a bit difficult to realize that the shaft is a deer leg). Would be a perfect place to reverse print with UV ink printer. But I bet this image would come out pretty nice if you first sprayed the back with maybe a dark green or other complementary color of your choice, then engraved the black areas using a dither pattern and filled with black, engraved the brown areas with a dither pattern and filled with brown, engraved beads and filled with turquoise, and finally engraved the white areas (either left frosted or filled with white). Definitely more time and effort, but I bet it would really pop!

[Kev Williams]

Bert, do you know how to use Corel's Contour tool? You can make a negative image easily, you just need to add an outline-- (or 2) ;)

447329

What I did:

I opened the cdr file above I sent-
it measures 13"-ish across, so I set my NUDGE distance to 15" (this is just for convenience to move things out of the way)
I uncombined everything, then went into WIREFRAME view-
I jogged all of the "Freedom" pieces left 15", to get them out of the way.
I then clicked on just the outline of the image, then jogged it to the right 15"
I opened the CONTOUR tool- I choose and OUTSIDE contour, 2 contours, and a distance of .012"...
when it finished I had 3 outlines, the inner original and 2 additional outers, all spaced .012" apart. At this point they're all combined--
I UNCOMBINED them, then deleted the original innermost contour. (this compensates for the cutting width of the laser)
then I jogged the 2 new outlines to the left back into original position.
I then boxed and COMBINED the image, then I boxed and combined the "Freedom" and jogged it back into position-
Painted them black--

The extra outline creates another "hole" which then inverts all the previous holes and painted areas. I added TWO more outlines because I wanted to remove the original outline, as that area will be un-engraved now, but the beam width will eat into the dead space, which you don't want...

[Bert Kemp]

Daa What did you say. Yike's for those that know and understand corel youmake it look easy .But that is very complicated to me and I'd never figure that out on my own. Like does not computed LOL. Like I said I try to keep it simple as muchg as possible. Michael asked me if I could engrave that for him and I said I'd try and with youe all help it got done but I don't do this stuff everyday all day like most of you. My laser runs once or twice a week to engrave some leather mostly. I just don't do it enought to learn all the stuff and I forget a lot that I did learn because I don't do it enough LOL
Kev I'll try this what you did maybe Saturday I'm busy Friday with PGR escorts.Don't know if I'll beable to do it even with your instructions LOL Im a corel dummy but ya'll know that LOL