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Ian Schnaitman
12-31-2007, 1:31 PM
Long time lurker first time poster.

I have a customer who would like this image laser engraved on 200 pieces of glass. I do not have PhotoGrav and have followed the instructions from a fellow poster on adjusting different things within photo shop. But my results are not very good. Any body have any tips that may help me move in the right direction? Thanks!

Ian Schnaitman

Luke Phillips
12-31-2007, 2:05 PM
Ian - what kind of glass will this be laser'd on? Will make a difference if its high lead content or the cheaper kind of glass. I can run it through Photograv for you and send you a .bmp file to try.

Ian Schnaitman
12-31-2007, 2:46 PM
Hey Luke, thanks for the response!

I am doing this for a guy who makes display cases. So I will be reverse engraving it on the glass (which is the lid) - so it is the cheaper kind of glass. Thanks again.

Larry Bratton
12-31-2007, 3:49 PM
Hey Luke, thanks for the response!

I am doing this for a guy who makes display cases. So I will be reverse engraving it on the glass (which is the lid) - so it is the cheaper kind of glass. Thanks again.
Ian:
That's the best glass..the cheaper the better on engraving. One thing that you need to do when engraving glass is to make the background of the photo black. I would also extend an offer to run the image through Photograv for you but we would need a larger one. The photo as posted is too small and the resolution too low to get a decent engraved piece of any size.

Ian Schnaitman
12-31-2007, 5:57 PM
Thanks for the offer Larry. I can send you my original file. I had to scale it down for posting purposes here on the forum. Any help would be great. Thanks!

Larry Bratton
12-31-2007, 6:49 PM
Thanks for the offer Larry. I can send you my original file. I had to scale it down for posting purposes here on the forum. Any help would be great. Thanks!
Ian:
I am sending you a PM.

Ricky Gore
01-01-2008, 11:06 AM
Be sure to let us nosey people know how it turns out. :)

Scott Shepherd
01-01-2008, 11:12 AM
Your customer is George Straight? :)

Rick Larson
01-01-2008, 1:21 PM
Hi I am a Newbie would like to thank you all for the great ideas. I have been reading this site for two months, lots of good information. We have an Epilog 36ext 75 watt. We made lots of Christmas gifts, starting with the ice crystals. Puzzles of our football teams. Plastic coffee holder and wood pictures.

Now for some dum questions?? First we just got photo gray yesterday so I had to try it out. Not to good though. Every thing I did came out with lots of grain, not much detail. I start with a picture in Corel photo do my editing then save to photo gray to change. Then I save back as a engrave to CorelDraw to print to my laser. In photo gray it looks good, but when it gets to CorelDraw not so. What am I doing wrong?

Second you talk about sealing wood before you laser. What do you use? Is dept, or spray varnish the best?

Larry Bratton
01-01-2008, 1:56 PM
Hi I am a Newbie would like to thank you all for the great ideas. I have been reading this site for two months, lots of good information. We have an Epilog 36ext 75 watt. We made lots of Christmas gifts, starting with the ice crystals. Puzzles of our football teams. Plastic coffee holder and wood pictures.

Now for some dum questions?? First we just got photo gray yesterday so I had to try it out. Not to good though. Every thing I did came out with lots of grain, not much detail. I start with a picture in Corel photo do my editing then save to photo gray to change. Then I save back as a engrave to CorelDraw to print to my laser. In photo gray it looks good, but when it gets to CorelDraw not so. What am I doing wrong?

Second you talk about sealing wood before you laser. What do you use? Is dept, or spray varnish the best?
Rick:
Ok. Please understand that Photograv has to have proper files sent to it. Otherwise, it's like the old addage..garbage in..garbage out. Let me describe my procedure to you and maybe it will help. I'm sure my learned associates in the forum will join in.
First, I try to start with the largest practical digital image that I can. If your scanning, scan at 300dpi. You can scan in color or greyscale, but greyscale is preferable to me, as that's how it's going to end up anyway. If you have taken a photo with a digital camera, it's more than likely going to be a jpg file. It will usually be quite large, dependent upon what Megapixel rating the camera has, but it will also be either 72 or 96dpi.
Next thing you want to do, is to get the image to the size that you need and boost up (res up) the resolution via Corel Photopaint. Do this via the Image/ Resize-Resample function. You also will want to change the contrast in the photo, as greyscale conversion usually looks kind of washed out.
Then, (and you may want to do this before resizing), consider the background. If your planning on engraving on granite, black marble or glass, paint the background black. Otherwise, you can leave it white.
Now,once your satisfied with the image, close it and save is as a TIFF file. Jpgs are just not a good file format for engraving. (I assume you have Photograv 3.0, if you don't, then save as a BMP file, as that's all Photograv 2.1 will handle).
Next, open the file in Photograv, choose the material, final process and that's pretty much it. Save your images where you can find them. (Photograv 3.0 puts the abbreviation (Eng) in the file name. I usually add what type of material it is processed for in the file name. (Their is an Interactive function in Photograv but for the life of me, I get just as good results doing the auto thing, but you may want to experiment.)
Next, import into Corel Draw. I have my page size set to my table size -24x36, (same as yours). Be sure to not rotate or resize the Eng file after it gets here. You may move it, just don't rotate or resize.
Speeds and feeds vary. Photograv 3.0 makes a recommendation, but I usually use what experience has taught me and use the Epilog table as a guide. My machine is 40watts, so you'll just have to work out what works best for your 75.
Good luck and Happy New Year!
(P.S. if your file doesn't "look good" in Corel, that's simply because it is now in a totally different form, it's a 1 bit black and white image, that really does look funky. Remember, where you see black, that's where the laser is going to fire)

Rick Larson
01-01-2008, 2:25 PM
Thanks Larry for all the information. I will have to get to work now and will post latter and maybe a picture.

James Jaragosky
01-01-2008, 3:33 PM
Rick:
Ok. Please understand that Photograv has to have proper files sent to it. Otherwise, it's like the old addage..garbage in..garbage out. Let me describe my procedure to you and maybe it will help. I'm sure my learned associates in the forum will join in.
First, I try to start with the largest practical digital image that I can. If your scanning, scan at 300dpi. You can scan in color or greyscale, but greyscale is preferable to me, as that's how it's going to end up anyway. If you have taken a photo with a digital camera, it's more than likely going to be a jpg file. It will usually be quite large, dependent upon what Megapixel rating the camera has, but it will also be either 72 or 96dpi.
Next thing you want to do, is to get the image to the size that you need and boost up (res up) the resolution via Corel Photopaint. Do this via the Image/ Resize-Resample function. You also will want to change the contrast in the photo, as greyscale conversion usually looks kind of washed out.
Then, (and you may want to do this before resizing), consider the background. If your planning on engraving on granite, black marble or glass, paint the background black. Otherwise, you can leave it white.
Now,once your satisfied with the image, close it and save is as a TIFF file. Jpgs are just not a good file format for engraving. (I assume you have Photograv 3.0, if you don't, then save as a BMP file, as that's all Photograv 2.1 will handle).
Next, open the file in Photograv, choose the material, final process and that's pretty much it. Save your images where you can find them. (Photograv 3.0 puts the abbreviation (Eng) in the file name. I usually add what type of material it is processed for in the file name. (Their is an Interactive function in Photograv but for the life of me, I get just as good results doing the auto thing, but you may want to experiment.)
Next, import into Corel Draw. I have my page size set to my table size -24x36, (same as yours). Be sure to not rotate or resize the Eng file after it gets here. You may move it, just don't rotate or resize.
Speeds and feeds vary. Photograv 3.0 makes a recommendation, but I usually use what experience has taught me and use the Epilog table as a guide. My machine is 40watts, so you'll just have to work out what works best for your 75.
Good luck and Happy New Year!
(P.S. if your file doesn't "look good" in Corel, that's simply because it is now in a totally different form, it's a 1 bit black and white image, that really does look funky. Remember, where you see black, that's where the laser is going to fire)
\
do you import the photo into Corel draw as the last step, because you export it directly from draw to your laser?
i have to save all my photogav renderings as a bmp. then import that file into the program that runs my laser. am i correct in assuming that is what you are basically doing with Corel draw?

Larry Bratton
01-01-2008, 5:25 PM
James:
Yes. After I have processed it in Photograv, I save it to a folder. Then I IMPORT it into Corel Draw. Corel Draw is the vehicle that I (and most other folks using Epilog's print driver) use. Since Rick's machine is an Epilog EXT, same as mine, this fits him. I suppose you can print to the driver with other programs, but Corel works good for layout.

James Jaragosky
01-01-2008, 6:54 PM
James:
Yes. After I have processed it in Photograv, I save it to a folder. Then I IMPORT it into Corel Draw. Corel Draw is the vehicle that I (and most other folks using Epilog's print driver) use. Since Rick's machine is an Epilog EXT, same as mine, this fits him. I suppose you can print to the driver with other programs, but Corel works good for layout.
Thanks for clearing that up for me. i just don have many people to discussed my type of laser with, so i have to try to pick up as much as i can and convert it to use on my Chinese laser. i was just making sure i was not missing something that might help improve my quality of output.

Larry Bratton
01-01-2008, 7:35 PM
Thanks for clearing that up for me. i just don have many people to discussed my type of laser with, so i have to try to pick up as much as i can and convert it to use on my Chinese laser. i was just making sure i was not missing something that might help improve my quality of output.
James:
That being said, and me, not knowing much about lasers anyhow, assumed that most of them work about the same as a printer. All printers have a software driver that makes the hardware work and usually shows up in the Printers and Faxes folder on a Windows computer as a printer. Sounds like what you have to do is to import INTO the driver as the driver for the machine is not recognized by your computer as just another printer.

James Jaragosky
01-01-2008, 9:17 PM
I think my laser software uses the file directly off my computer instead of it being uploaded into the laser itself. If that makes sense. Like i said I got a different animal than most, so I am kind of groping in the dark here. But I am happy with the thing so far. I do screw up a lot of material, but I always learn something new in the process.:)
thanks for the support i really Appreciate all the help I get here.
jim j.

Bill Cunningham
01-01-2008, 9:36 PM
Every thing I did came out with lots of grain, not much detail. I start with a picture in Corel photo do my editing then save to photo gray to change. Then I save back as a engrave to CorelDraw to print to my laser. In photo gray it looks good, but when it gets to CorelDraw not so. What am I doing wrong?

Second you talk about sealing wood before you laser. What do you use? Is dept, or spray varnish the best?

First off, what you see in corel draw 'is' going to look bad, because your screen will not display a high res binary image correctly.. If you really want to see what it will look like, make a duplicate of the picture and move it over on the screen, go to bitmap, convert the duplicate to grayscale and re-sample to 95 dpi.. bingo you have a picture you can see, but not engrave.. The one that will engrave is just the opposite, you can engrave it, but not see it very well.. It's all about screen res. Second: I spray on one coat of clear laquer before lasering.. Oops .. let it dry first or you won't like the fire..:D