John Bowden
03-07-2008, 1:04 PM
Recently, I had to do a job that involved engraving and color filling text over a 3D engraving in wood (maple). So, I started with the 3D “background” image. I should point out that the image was burned using the laser’s 3D setting but wasn’t burned very deep. But it was just deep enough to give me problems with the color fill. In the areas where the background was engraved to any depth, the mask allowed a little color to seep into areas where it wasn’t wanted.
After thinking about it for a few minutes… I thought, why not engrave and color fill the text first? The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
So… I masked, engraved and color filled the text. Then, I aligned the graphic (in the background and set the text to white in corel) and engraved the background and the “white” text. Since the white text = laser off, it didn’t interfere with the text I had already color filled. And since it engraved everything but the text… it actually “cleaned up” the area around the text making it look more defined.
Just make sure you keep your alignment between runs, and be sure not to engrave the background deeper that the top layer text and it works pretty well.
Please forgive me if everybody already knows this “trick”, but…I just love it when things work out even better than I planned!
OK – that’s never actually happened to me before.
After thinking about it for a few minutes… I thought, why not engrave and color fill the text first? The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
So… I masked, engraved and color filled the text. Then, I aligned the graphic (in the background and set the text to white in corel) and engraved the background and the “white” text. Since the white text = laser off, it didn’t interfere with the text I had already color filled. And since it engraved everything but the text… it actually “cleaned up” the area around the text making it look more defined.
Just make sure you keep your alignment between runs, and be sure not to engrave the background deeper that the top layer text and it works pretty well.
Please forgive me if everybody already knows this “trick”, but…I just love it when things work out even better than I planned!
OK – that’s never actually happened to me before.