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View Full Version : New to Photograv...??



Pete Wood
08-07-2007, 9:07 PM
I am, so I found these two PDF articles, from Corel, quite useful:

http://www.coreldrawpro.com/Library/CP-607.pdf

http://www.coreldrawpro.com/Library/CP-707.pdf

Warning, the files are pretty big (5Mb). You need to scroll down to about page 14, on both articles, to reach the story - though I bet, like me, you end up reading what others are doing with Corel......

If anyone else has any hints and tips (I understand from the Creek that Cherry is brilliant!!), I would love to hear them please.

Larry Bratton
08-09-2007, 4:04 PM
Pete:
Being VERY far from being an expert, I can say that Photograv is a very good program. Their may be some ways to "optimize" for laser engraving besides it, but I had it here the day I installed the laser, so I haven't tried any other methods. I have gotten good to outstanding results on practically everything I have engraved.
Just be sure that when you design your graphic for sending to Photograv, be sure you size it to the final size you want to output, don't stretch it or anything beyond moving it to position when you get it into Corel Draw. I use Corel as the layout program, but I use Photoshop CS3 for the inital work on the graphic I intend to engrave. If it's in color, I usually do the adjustments just like I am going to print it in color, remove the background etc,then convert to greyscale, save as a bmp extension. I also use Photoshop to "res" it up to 300 or so dpi and size it to where I want to be (lower resolution may be OK but I think they say to engrave at the graphics resolution or a multiple of 2) . Photoshop uses an algorithim to do this and it very good at it. Then when finished send to Photograv. I process it in Photograv, inspect it for anything I should have fixed in Photoshop and if I don't see anything I go ahead, otherwise, don't save and go back and fix it. Remember, the laser is very detailed and it's going to show you any artifacts you may have left etc. The saved engraving file is a bmp and you can open it in either Photoshop or Photopaint to get a further insight into how things may look in the finished product. Try to begin with a good graphic or photo, because no amount of manipulation can fix a graphic that's poor to begin with.
I'm sure my learned forum associates here will render some added advice but this is my method and it works for me.
Good luck!

Bill Cunningham
08-09-2007, 10:48 PM
I quite often open a photograv .bmp engraving file in photopaint and clean out a few pixels that shouldn't be there. As long as it remains a binary file, and you don't change the size, and you re-save it as a lineart (binary) file there is no harm done.. You don't even have to re-save it as a .bmp . you can resave it as a line art .tif file if you wish. Then import that into coreldraw for engraving .. No difference, as long as it is not re-sized, and remains a binary file..

Larry Bratton
08-12-2007, 5:52 PM
I quite often open a photograv .bmp engraving file in photopaint and clean out a few pixels that shouldn't be there. As long as it remains a binary file, and you don't change the size, and you re-save it as a lineart (binary) file there is no harm done.. You don't even have to re-save it as a .bmp . you can resave it as a line art .tif file if you wish. Then import that into coreldraw for engraving .. No difference, as long as it is not re-sized, and remains a binary file..
Exactly Bill. Sometimes you can see something that shouldn't be there..stray pixel etc. and you can correct it then. Is their a particular reason you had in mind for saving to a different file type? I kind of subscribe to the idea that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. BMP has always been a good non-lossy file type.

Bill Cunningham
08-14-2007, 10:19 PM
A non compressed .tif file takes up a lot less room than a .bmp it's also a lot smaller if you have to email it, even .zipped.. Photograv uses .bmp's because the technology is older.. Photograv is in 'serious' need of a upgrade and modernization .. They were supposed to be coming out with one, but ain't seen it yet!

Larry Bratton
08-15-2007, 4:49 PM
A non compressed .tif file takes up a lot less room than a .bmp it's also a lot smaller if you have to email it, even .zipped.. Photograv uses .bmp's because the technology is older.. Photograv is in 'serious' need of a upgrade and modernization .. They were supposed to be coming out with one, but ain't seen it yet!

That is true on all accounts. I agree that Photograv has some issues and a $400 program should have less than it does. Heck, Photoshop full version is in the neighborhood of $600, but to me it is a very good value. I am never ceased to be amazed at all it will do.

Mike Gaston
08-16-2007, 10:01 PM
Just went to the photograv site and see that they are beta testing version 3.0 now and that all future purchases are to get free upgrade. I wonder what those of us that have purchased within the last six moths or year will get?

Frank Corker
08-17-2007, 6:41 AM
Probably a whopping big bill

Scott Shepherd
08-17-2007, 8:11 AM
I saw that beta notice the other day and emailed them to ask exactly what was improved in the new version. I don't have the list in front of me, but it was a fairly short list, one being "improved graphical interface", and from what I recall, the rest were mostly based around material files, layout of the screen/tools, and the ability to save images as a variety of types.