showing depth in acrylic photos

[Craig Hogarth]

Here's a project i just got done working on. It's 4 pieces acrylic with different parts of a picture engraved onto 3 pieces of clear cast, using a 4th piece of black to show contrast. Basically what i did was duplicated the original into 3 photos. On the first layer, i cut out grandpa and my daughter. The second layer is the couch and the third is background. Each portion of the photo is engraved only once, so there is no duplicated grandpa behind the first layer. The piece is held by a strip of black vinyl going around the edges. I wish i could post the corel file, but i don't have any zip software.

anyways the photo doesn't do justice to the actual piece, but it's truly amazing as it's almost 3d.


http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3589/acrylicdepth4ct9.png

[Joe Pelonio]

Very clever idea.

[Bill Morrison]

Nice work. How thick was the acrylic?

[Craig Hogarth]

just plain old 1/8" cast. assembled 1/2" thick.

[Tim Bateson]

Great work Craig

[Frank Corker]

Now that's cool. I wonder what would happen if we took a picture and split it into the primary colours. Each one goes into photograv and an image created from them. Engrave the image in cyan then magenta, yellow and black. All put together would we have a colour engraving?

[Craig Hogarth]

I'll leave that one to you frank. ;)

[Frank Corker]

Thanks Craig

[Chad Voller]

Craig, what operating system are you using? If you're on a Mac, sorry, no help there. If it is Windows XP, you should be able to just...

1. Right click the file
2. Move cursor over 'Send To'
3. Choose 'Compressed (zipped) Folder'

This zip should be openable on PC and Mac. I am on XP Pro, not positive if Home Edition includes this feature.

Nice job. I like it. I was thinking of doing something similar with a nature scene; deer in the woods, or something like that. Did you fill any of the blank areas in? Like the couch layer, did you do any cloning of the couch into the area where he is cut out? So when you move around, the couch seems to stay behind the image instead of having a silhouette? Or is it not noticable?

Frank, you pulling our chains? :) Wouldn't you end up with just a dark cluster of acrylic if you did that. CMYK is subtractive coloring, so in the engraved areas and non-engraved areas, it'll be dark when layered. Now maybe if the clear acrylic had a very thin transparent layer of the color on top, and you zapped away the areas of the color that are not supposed to be visible. Smooth it up with a little flame, then layered them up. I'm not sure it would even turn out since if you move, the colors are not lining up anymore and the image will appear blurry, with bright halos around detailed areas. Kinda like when a CRT projector goes out of alignment.... But maybe you had something else in mind?

[Brian Robison]

Craig,
Since no one is asking to obvious question, I guess I will.
How many times did you spank that child to get her to cry that hard?

[Chad Voller]

Damn, now you got me kinda thinking using edge lights and layered red, green and blue. RGB is additive, so etched, it should be brighter, but the lit layers in front might over power the back one. One way to find out I guess.

[Frank Corker]

I only put ideas into your heads :D How about backlighting it????

[Craig Hogarth]

This zip should be openable on PC and Mac. I am on XP Pro, not positive if Home Edition includes this feature.

Nice job. I like it. I was thinking of doing something similar with a nature scene; deer in the woods, or something like that. Did you fill any of the blank areas in? Like the couch layer, did you do any cloning of the couch into the area where he is cut out? So when you move around, the couch seems to stay behind the image instead of having a silhouette? Or is it not noticable?



chad, i tried to do what you said, but it didn't compress it enough. I have pkunzip freeware. Since i've really never had a need to zip, i've never bought a full zip version.

no, i didn't fill in any areas. I just cut out each portion of the image. And to be completely honest, it's a horrible job of photo editing. If you were to look closely at each individual layer, it's not pretty. But once you put them all together and they align perfect, you don't notice anything, no matter how hard you look. Yeah, when you move from side to side, you notice the sillouette a bit, but it gives it more a shadow appearance.

I put it in my store yesterday afternoon and I've gotten a great response from it with 2 orders and a few more looking for a better picture. Customers hold it up and move it at different angles. It really does give it a 3D appearance.

[Chad Voller]

I'm coming to the conclusion that RGB layering won't work either. A lit red behind blue and green will probably appear desaturated by the time it gets to the front layer, and will probably start taking on the hue of the front layer. Trying to picture a red christmas light behind a green one that is not on. It should appear greenish yellow, or dark orange maybe.

[Lee DeRaud]

chad, i tried to do what you said, but it didn't compress it enough. I have pkunzip freeware. Since i've really never had a need to zip, i've never bought a full zip version.Zip is Zip: the free version compresses just as well as the pay version or its Windows equivalent. (The pay version adds features like the ability to make self-extracting archives and do encryption...never saw the need for it myself.)

Problem is, that file is mostly one or more bitmaps in JPG format, which is already compressed.