Picking up background when I laser Help anyone

[Keith Bragg]

Hi Folks

I have attached a drawing that I had done for a project after scanning and send the job to the laser I am picking up background noise from the paper that isn't seen with the eye. Any help with this would be great.

I am using corel 11 would x3 help solve some of these issues or not?

I tried to attach the image and could not maybe just some sugestions and then I could get rid of the backgrond that the laser is seeing and printing.

Thanks Keith

[Dave Jones]

It's hard to say, without knowing anything about the image. For example, if it has no shades of gray, simply boost the contrast or convert to a 1 bit image using a 50% threshhold. That won't work if the image has shades of grays that need to engrave.

[Keith Bragg]

The drawing is a black & white drawing done in black ink and the background is the white paper it self what it appears to pick up is the different shades that are in the paper.

If someone would explain the steps to do an attacment I would gladly attach the image so you could see it.

[Mike Null]

Keith:
This sounds like a problem I ran into a while back when engraving a diploma on wood. I was getting a lot of dots around the engraved area that upon much enlarged observation were indeed there. I called them noise but they were actually gray areas from the parchment paper I was scanning from.

I used the eraser in PhotoPaint to remove the noise and that helped but was not totally successful. I ultimately redrew the entire diploma.

At the time I did not have X3. Now I think I would attempt to trace it in X3.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Keith;
Another way to clean up your image is to use Photopaint or Photoshop Brightness/Contrast controls-make the white as bright as possible and the contrast to make the black as dark as possible. This is a little easier than trying to erase areas in an intricate drawing.
Good Luck
george

[Keith Bragg]

Mike

That is exactly what it is after enlarging the image I could see the different shades in the paper you were talking erasing all of that with photo paint seems like a lot of time. And unfortunately I don't have x3 yet looks like I will be looking for it soon. Thanks for the help.

George

I will have to try your suggestions with the brighten of the white and contrast darken of the black, If I ever get it to work I will post the results

Thanks again Keith

[James Stokes]

You did not say what laser you have, but if it is Epilog you need to set it as photograph instead of clipart in the properties menue.

[Keith Bragg]

James

I do have a epilog 24tt 45watt I will have to try that as well to see what I get for results.

Thanks Keith

[Mike Null]

The other thing you might try is to reduce the resolution you're scanning at. My diploma had a lot of gray as part of the artwork in the diploma and necessitated scanning at 600 dpi. As I understand your drawing it is black and white which might give you more options.

You might even find that trace in version 11 will work with just a little touch up. I would try that before buying X3.

Another option that most people are not aware of is software which comes with certain HP scanners. I can't recall the name of it but have used it and it might well be the best scan-to-vector software out there.

[James Stokes]

When I first got my epilog I had the same problem with older files from my other laser. Any kind of bitmap file would have a lot of stray stuff around it. Once I started using the photograph setting it all went away.

[Barbara Buhse]

Can someone please explain this thing with the epilog and the photograph setting? where is the setting, etc? Maybe I should try this, but I don't know anything about it... I have an epilog 35watt

Thanks

Barbara

[Joe Pelonio]

Barbara,

It's in the driver. When you select print and have the properties window,
Under rastor one selection is Basic Options, and the choices are either
clip art or photograph. Clipart works for both, but photograph does a more subtle dithering.