Trouble with this graphic on Corel

[David James]

This image prints on a printer fine, but when I engrave it the image has a back screen to it. The image engraves as well as some sort of back screen that ruins the peace and renders the whole image collection worthless to me. I have been told there is a way to take this out in X3, any ideas. Thank you in advance, have a great Sunday!

[Mike Null]

David

This one is relatively easy by using quick trace.

[Kim Vellore]

I think it has a light shade in the white area just changed it to no fill in all the white areas...

Kim

[David James]

I am trying to engrave the image, not to cut it out, are you suggesting tracing it and then filling it so it will engrave without the back screen?

[Larry Bratton]

I am trying to engrave the image, not to cut it out, are you suggesting tracing it and then filling it so it will engrave without the back screen?
David:
First, you need to understand what is happening. If you open Object Manager, you will see several of the curves that show a value of like R252,G252,B252. These objects are all very close to white which is 255 in the RGB color space (black is 0) and are objects that will print. In a printer, however, their is no white ink, sooo..what you actually see is the white paper your printing on. The laser is going to handle them differently and give you a white area around your black curves, that are actually all you want the laser to fire on. You need to get rid of those white filled curves, not all, but some (the ones you don't need). Here is one way you can do it and see whats going on.

In your Draw page, draw a rectangle the size of the page and fill it with black. Then go to Arrange and Send it to Back of Page. Now, you can see your elk and all the white space around it. With your object manager open, start selecting the white or near white curves you want to get rid and delete them. You can see the results of the deletions as you go. Remember, your laser is going to fire on the black, so this allows you to manage what you are deleting.
Usually when I raster engrave I use bitmaps that are greyscale images. This image could be converted in Photopaint, but I think the procedure I stated will work. Give it a try. Good luck!
(PS-don't forget to delete the black rectangle before you laser it)

[Robin Lake]

David --

If you haven't already done the job, and if you need another rendition of "Elk2," you can try this one. :)

It is vectorized. The entire black portion is one curve (no outline) with curves laid over it filled with white (no outlines) to make the highlights. It could use a little more refinement by changing some of the nodes to smooth instead of cusp so that points on the animal, especially in the coat, don't appear so sharp.

From snowy North Idaho.

See ya.

Robin Lake

[Robin Lake]

Oops -- been gone too long.

Edit -- I quit ('til I find out what I'm not doing right).

[Mike Null]

David
Just ungroup the one I posted and delete the background.

[Larry Bratton]

David
Just ungroup the one I posted and delete the background.
Right Mike! I was trying to illustrate to him what was going on.

[Stephen Beckham]

David,

I'm late on this one, but wanted to add for future reference my technique for getting those 'ghost bits' lurking in the shadows. I use the transparency tool. When you select any white pixel, all the white should go away. In most cases, you'll see a bunch of left over's. If all the white goes away - undo and go about your business.

If you have spots all over, you'll have to master how you deal with them. You can use the same tool to select the next darker one ect... - which will eventually start eating away at your grey lines/dots or you can raise your tolerence until they start to go away which will give you the same results of loosing greys. A third option is to use the eraser on them.

Remember they say humans can only detect 8-16 different greys... The laser see a heck of a lot more... And it'll try to burn every one except pure white... Have fun!

I attached a screen shot of what you'll see after applying the Transparency tool in Corel Paint. You should see all the extra pixels not cleared after I clicked on the white in your image. If you are not familiar with this tool, let me know - I'll see if I can help...