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Vince Williams
10-03-2006, 9:46 AM
Newbie needs help engraving photos. The only program I have is Laser Master 2 Icannot seem to get everything right or do I need another program. In one phot My 2 children and dog on a piece of plywood the dog turns out great and the kids are very shaded around the face. any tips please.

Vince

Joe Pelonio
10-03-2006, 11:29 AM
For those of us not familiar with Lasermaster, does it allow you to import and run files such as eps, tif, bmp and jpg, or do you have to scan directly into it? Does it have a feature that allows for editing photos?

Typically a color photo has to be inverted, to grayscale, contrast and brightness may also have to be adjusted. If you cannot do that with your software you will need an additional program such as Photoshop or Corel Photopaint or something less expensive that does the same things. Often the software that comes with a digital camera will include a photo editor.
Be aware too that the best quality comes from a tif, though they are larger files. Jpg files are compressed to make faster loading on websites, and they lose resolution each time they are saved. Some photos with bad contrast between object and background are just not going to engrave well.

Vince Williams
10-18-2006, 8:42 AM
Thanks Joe I have since bought a photo editing program that seems to be working great!! I have another question, when I set my settings for the engraver do the dpi's and the ppi's have to match or can I leave the ppi setting in auto. thanks for any assistance:) :)

Joe Pelonio
10-18-2006, 11:07 AM
It depends on how your laser works. On my Epilog PPI which is called "frequency" is used only in vector cutting, and DPI only when rastoring.

When cutting the frequency is set lower for material that may flame and scorch more, or for a perforated cut. It's set higher for a polished edge on acrylic. When engraving DPI setting determines the number and overlap of the "dots". When I send the job it does one after the other, engrave then cut, and they would not have to match.

Mike Null
10-18-2006, 11:46 AM
Vince:

The PPI's (pulses per inch) identifies the frequency that the laser pulses. This setting is relevant to both raster and vector operation. For normal work your PPI should be at 500 or higher. If you are trying to do a perforation on paper for example you might want to lower it to 150-250.

PPI does not affect the operating speed of your machine.

DPI (dots per inch or per line) does not function during vectoring; it is only operational during rastering.

DPI does affect the job time of your machine--the higher the dpi the slower your machine will complete the job even if you have it set on the highest speed. The actual speed of the laser head remains the same but it must make more trips across the x axis.

If you can picture a ruler divided in 1/32" increments and another in 1/64" increments and place those in the Y axis on your table and imagine that there are lines projected from the ruler you can picture what dpi means. The 64 increments (lines) is double the 32 and will obviously create more dots and lines with the lines being the determinant for the job time.

I am not a technician so the explanation is probably lacking in some detail.