Bart Woodstrup
08-03-2007, 2:47 PM
I'm looking for some initial pointers if any of you could lend them. (I'm not a professional, so please excuse my lack of knowing proper terminology).
I am a student at a school that just received a very nice Vytek Special FX 100 watt laser. I'd like to use it to etch glass. So far I've etched glass using the settings I received from vytek. However they didn't give me much to go on...
Here's what I've tried:
I've made several files in photoshop - a grayscale tiff, a 50% threshold bitmap, and a halftone screened bitmap - each 300dpi. I then printed each through Corel (does the version # matter?). In the print setup I adjusted the power and speed for best results.
My problem is that it etched the image as a solid color (except for the 100% white areas) - by "solid" I mean without any of the tonal gradation or screen present in the original image. I adjusted the full range of power and speed settings which did change the amount of depth of the etch, but didn't add any tonal gradation. Any suggestions or is this too vague?
Is the Vytek able to adjust the laser strength to etch gradations or is it basically on/off? Am I working to small? (my image size was 3"x3")
Finally, I read in a Vytek manual that I should be placing a wet tissue when etching glass - but it didn't tell me where to place the tissue (above or below) or why to do it in the first place. Any insight?
I've etched glass on a smaller laser before (I can't remember the model #) and the image looked great - it was a small image and had a very good tonal range.
Any suggestions or if you can refer me to previous posts or other documents, will be mucho appreciated.
thanks
bbw
I am a student at a school that just received a very nice Vytek Special FX 100 watt laser. I'd like to use it to etch glass. So far I've etched glass using the settings I received from vytek. However they didn't give me much to go on...
Here's what I've tried:
I've made several files in photoshop - a grayscale tiff, a 50% threshold bitmap, and a halftone screened bitmap - each 300dpi. I then printed each through Corel (does the version # matter?). In the print setup I adjusted the power and speed for best results.
My problem is that it etched the image as a solid color (except for the 100% white areas) - by "solid" I mean without any of the tonal gradation or screen present in the original image. I adjusted the full range of power and speed settings which did change the amount of depth of the etch, but didn't add any tonal gradation. Any suggestions or is this too vague?
Is the Vytek able to adjust the laser strength to etch gradations or is it basically on/off? Am I working to small? (my image size was 3"x3")
Finally, I read in a Vytek manual that I should be placing a wet tissue when etching glass - but it didn't tell me where to place the tissue (above or below) or why to do it in the first place. Any insight?
I've etched glass on a smaller laser before (I can't remember the model #) and the image looked great - it was a small image and had a very good tonal range.
Any suggestions or if you can refer me to previous posts or other documents, will be mucho appreciated.
thanks
bbw