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Darren Null
03-16-2008, 9:57 AM
Flaming pear's India Ink. Photoshop plugin.

It's not quite got the definition of Andromeda's Etchtone, but the difference isn't that big at all. And at 1/8 of the price, it's definitely an option worth having a look at.
http://www.flamingpear.com/indiaink.html

As well as doing black and white conversion quite competently, it's also got some wooshy effects that you're probably never going to use; but there's quite a nice silk/grain one that you could use to get a fake woodgrain on MDF, for example.

Left is Etchtone, Right is India Ink. It may well be possible to get more detail out of India Ink- I was only twonking round with it for 10 minutes; whereas I've got Etchtone doing exactly what I want now.

Mike Null
03-16-2008, 2:06 PM
Darren

Do you have PhotGrav or could you compare this process to theirs?

Bill Cunningham
03-16-2008, 8:13 PM
I downloaded India ink a couple of years ago, (they used to , and maybe still do, give you a trial period to check it out) but in the mean time I got photograv so never got a real good chance to try it.. But it did look intriguing..

Darren Null
03-17-2008, 1:02 AM
I thought it looked intriguing too, so I gave it a go.

I don't have photograv, no. I did have a 2.11 trial version and it did have the edge over etchtone. Etchtone is slightly grainier...it is, after all, a 'steel etch effect' that wasn't meant for lasers when it was designed. Also etchtone suffers from a bit of a Moiré effect (as does Photograv (not much though), India Ink, and the 'graphic pen' in Photoshop), which may well contribute to banding when burning.

($400)Photograv is superior, I believe, with my limited testing. But it's a colossal pain in the arse to use.

($119)Etchtone isn't very far behind photograv in output quality, but if you're used to using photoshop it's very convenient. And, of course, while you've got photoshop open, you can slice, dice, crop and unsharp mask while you're there.

($15)India Ink is the poor cousin, but it does do the job. I've played with it some more over the afternoon, but haven't made it equal etchtone yet. And I don't think I will. There's a surreal 'not quite there' quality to the images, whatever you do.

(Free as part of photoshop)The Graphic Pen filter. It'll work and you can burn quality images with it. Start by setting the stroke length to 3 and the threshold to 126 or lower. It's surprisingly good.

All of the above leave the 'convert to black-and-white' routines in photoshop and coreldraw (x3) standing. And probably, your customers wouldn't be able to see a difference if you used one, rather than another.

I've not tried the new version of photograv. Frankly, the 2.11 was enough of a nightmare that I just can't be bothered to try it. Especially as I haven't seen any 'woohoo the new photograv RAWKS!'-type threads in here. So right now, it's etchtone for me.

Darren Null
03-17-2008, 1:30 AM
How about a test? I've uploaded a file (yellowrose.jpg) that I use as a calibration because it's a sod to get right.I'll do the etchtone, the India ink and the graphic pen and attach them at the same size (in pixels) as the original. If somebody would care to do it with photograv, we'll have ourselves a scientificish test.

Oddly enough, I'd burn the india ink version with this particular image.

ORIGINAL-->ETCHTONE-->INDIA INK-->GRAPHIC PEN

George M. Perzel
03-17-2008, 6:48 AM
Hi Darren;
Here's the rose image in Photograv.(2.11)
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

Mike Null
03-17-2008, 7:55 AM
Thanks Darren and George. That's quite a revealing comparison. PhotoGrav looks terrific but for $15 IndiaInk is pretty good.

Mike Null
03-17-2008, 8:03 AM
Here it is as a simple gray scale conversion in Photopaint with no adjustments.

While this looks very good I recently did a sublimation of an image which had been converted with PhotoGrav where I had the original art. I tried to replicate the PhotoGrav results with PhotoPaint and couldn't get close.

Darren Null
03-17-2008, 12:32 PM
Greyscale is all very well, but it's not what you're going to get when you burn it. Corel's own conversion routines will take over and you'll end up with (for me) an unsatisfactory image.

I like reducing things to pure black-and-white first so I can see exactly what I'm burning BEFORE I commit. Incidentally, I use TIFF to transport the image between photoshop and corel...if you try it with a BMP, little grey pixels get added in.

Photograv was the clear winner then (thanks George), and I was interested to note that the moiré ran vertically, which should certainly help fight banding. I did try flipping the rose 90 degrees and etchtoning...didn't work.
Pity there isn't a photoshop plugin with the photograv algorhythm. That'd be ideal.

Darren Null
01-09-2009, 12:26 AM
I've just had a bit of a revelation. XNView, the free graphics viewer has an Image --> "Convert to Binary" feature. If you select Floyd-Steinberg the results aren't too shabby at all. Not quite a photograv killer as is, but with a bit of edge-enhancement (also with the program) it's very good. The below was without edge-enhancement and I don't have time to upload it with. We have a winner, I think. Particularly at the price.

Check this out:

Rodne Gold
01-09-2009, 5:33 AM
Heh... Free is a Price I like big time.
Xnview also adds a great CDR viewer - also very good at the price.
You should really apply an violent unsharp mask , rather than edge detection for the best results..Im not sure wheter Xnview has that?

Andrey Anfimov
01-09-2009, 6:09 AM
The Photograv changes a picture different ways for different materials. Other programs cannot do it. They will transform a picture in bitmap, but for what material? Only for to look on display?

The Photograv does three MAIN things:
1) Gamma correction (different Gamma correction for different materials ).
2) Sharpening.
3) engraving Imitation.

The greatest problem is not to lose a picture semitone. For marble it is a semitone in white area, for wood it is a semitone in black area. Additional correction is necessary for the decision of this problem. (Look pictures)

"My recipe for black marble"
1) Gamma picture correction (0.44)
2) Additional correction in white area (Look picture)
3) Sharpening
4) engraving Imitation. (Reduce white level to 80 %.)

Here is a picture I've made are using the "My recipe for black marble".

Frank Corker
01-09-2009, 6:58 AM
I wouldn't be without XNView either. I think it is a great program, especially when it comes to getting real size, dpi settings, plus a true greyscale. It doesn't have the unsharp filter, but for preparation for photograv, I think it's a must. I too convert my images to greyscale before entering into any conversion method. Andrey has got a nice even image.

I have looked, Lord knows how many times, at the images supplied by photograv as samples. Trying to figure out what it is about them that makes them stand out from the crowd, the greys seem to be very even throughout, always leaves me feeling I am searching for the holy grail.

Andrey Anfimov
01-09-2009, 7:46 AM
I don't use PhotoGrav, I always use PHOTOSHOP.
It is very usefull to put Grayscale on your photo. It helps you to understand what wrong with your picture and what to do if you want to correct it.

Frank Corker
01-09-2009, 3:26 PM
Andrey, I know that you don't use photograv, I was just commenting that you had a nice even image on the one picture that you showed.
Having cleared that up, how about engraving it onto something and showing us the result! Actions speak much louder than words.

Scott Shepherd
01-09-2009, 3:33 PM
I'm not marketing guru, but if I owned the company who made PhotoGrav, I'd be paying a LOT of attention to the effort people are going through to crack the code and use less expensive methods. I'd be coming out with a new $99 version or even a $79 version.

Granted, a filter on Photoshop is NOT a cheaper method. Even if the filter is free, you still have to buy Photoshop, which makes buying Photograv look cheap.

Andrey Anfimov
01-09-2009, 5:36 PM
Frank,
you can see my job on page http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=99125&highlight=power

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=103705&d=1229369936

Frank Corker
01-09-2009, 9:07 PM
Andrey the picture is excellent. Your other post is directed mainly towards Universal lasers, so goes outside of my interest, but from your post I can see that it works.

Andrey Anfimov
01-10-2009, 1:11 AM
Frank,
If your laser can engrave rubber stamp you may use that method too.
The idea is to change power from 0 to 100% using grey scale with brightness from white to black. So you can see what power give you the best contrast. Only one minute and you know exactly what you need!
All the rest time you may drink coffe and tea and look at your and mine great work!... 8-)

Darren Null
01-10-2009, 1:47 AM
Greyscale is all very well for black marble, but you need proper black and white for some jobs...like white marble that you have to colour fill. That's what photograv is for. That's an awesome job on black though, Andrey

With XNView, there's both 'enhance' and sharpen in the 'Effects' menu. And there's a gamma slider in the Image --> Adjust section (no histogram though). I think that with a bit of playing around it might well be possible to beat photograv's results, but some experimentation will be necessary to do so. What to use and in which order. Certainly it can duplicate everything photograv does, and -I could be wrong here- the XNView's implementation of the Floyd-Steinberg dither looks to be smoother than whatever it is that photograv uses.

This one, I used edge enhance, and also twonked around with the shadow/highlight settings and also the 'GammaSat' part. An early attempt, but compares favourably with photograv's offering. There's less depth in the shadows, but on the other hand I got rid of the cack in the background. Of course, if I was doing this properly as a job, I'd kill the background and get the subject right, but that wouldn't be a scientific test. XNView is also the only dithering so far in this test that doesn't have the moire banding.

Andrey Anfimov
01-10-2009, 7:31 AM
Darren,
XNView very good program, but it work very slowly with big files.
For example, if I want to engrave photo on marble which size is 30x30 cm I need to operate with file 40-100 mb size. Before dithering you must have file with resolution 1,5-2 times more. For example I want to do photo on marble with resolution = 250 dpi. So I need original file with resolution = 300 - 500 dpi. Photoshop work well with that big files.
More over, Photograv doesn't analyzes file, it only has preset for 20 materials. Of course you can change them and make your own. In Photoshop I can do any preset for any material.
OK, one more thing why I prefer PhotoShop. I can not transmit BMP file from Photograv to laser without loosing quality. I did it a lot of times and always have bad result. It will be very good news if PhotoGrav can produce file without dithering, because driver of laser can makes it much better.

Frank Corker
01-10-2009, 8:01 AM
...the XNView's implementation of the Floyd-Steinberg dither looks to be smoother than whatever it is that photograv uses.

Quite often a very smooth image on granite does not necessarily make it a good thing, it can make it more photographic but with loss of detail. I have done stuff on granite using halftone and the result was dramatic, sharp and overall very effective.

Last year I did a piece on granite which was just like a photograph. It was an excellent result, the person buying told me it looked 'like a photograph'. He didn't want it, he wanted a picture which looked like it had been engraved. (not the first time I had a feeling come over me of a sudden desire to punch someone). So I ran it through photograv with no tweeks and he thought it was great, best of all (and his redemption) he paid for the better one. Had I thought on I should have photographed it, but I put the hammer to the good one while he stood by and watched.

I'm still looking for the holy grail way of making a good halftone image, so Andrey, maybe you know the way on this one. Or you Darren, you seem to be extremely adept at carrying out masses of tests.

Rodne Gold
01-10-2009, 9:48 AM
Photograv does do 1/2 tones , it just converts it to a single bit image prior to engraving , just as any laser driver would. The laser has 2 "colours" fired or not fired so it has to do it too to engrave.
At any rate , different laser drivers will have different ways of dealing with shades of grey and converting them to 1 bit images. At least with something like photograv , you have total control of how its all going to come out on screen unlike most drivers

The thing with engraving halftones is that you have to realise that most lasers we use with 2" lenses cannot do better than about 250 dots per inch (probably 50 pixels per inch) cos of the beam diameter so smoothness of halftones will probably be pretty limited to 8-16 or so shades of grey if you want to maintain the best detail.
Add to that the fact that beams change as they traverse the table and that some materials have big heat affected zones , true smooth halftoning with a laser is basically a suck it and see thing.
I have found quite a bit of success in dropping the pixels per inch of photographs to 150 or less , the higher PPI's tend to make for messier engravings.
I also limit my laser to 300 "dpi" or lower when engraving em.
By definition , halftoning is actually an illusion to fool the eye , when engraving , I often forgo extreme detail for a better eye caching picture.

Frank Corker
01-10-2009, 10:39 AM
By definition , halftoning is actually an illusion to fool the eye , when engraving , I often forgo extreme detail for a better eye caching picture. .

I agree with that. Rodney this little snippet refers to LPI lines per inch. What's the easy way of finding out that? Or am I not able to compute what the attached is detailing?

Rodne Gold
01-10-2009, 1:11 PM
The laser is the equivalent of a 300dpi or less laser printer...

Andrey Anfimov
01-10-2009, 2:39 PM
Rodne is absolutely right, it is impossible to do photos on marble with resolution more than 250 dpi because in the field of white all shades will be lost and in a picture there will be white stains.

I always use halftone and 200dpi on marble.

Dee Gallo
01-10-2009, 3:49 PM
I don't have any marble, but I tried a test on a granite tile to try to learn about the various formats. I tried 600 dpi which came out well. The upside down roses you see were 150 and 300 dpi, which came out too rough.

It looks like the India Ink, Photograv and xnview are all good programs, but none of them are as "greyscale" as Andrey's file. I like the contrast on the India Ink image.

Thanks to all of you for the files to try, and the info which is sometimes over my head, but teaching me a lot!

cheers, dee

ps- the flash from the camera kind of whitened the images a bit more than they really are.

Tim Bateson
01-10-2009, 4:20 PM
Has anyone tried using only the Epilog Dithering options? With only a gray image photo - No PhotoGrav - no Xnview - no India Ink

Frank Corker
01-10-2009, 5:09 PM
Tim, Tony Welch has done this quite a lot and swears by it, I have still to give it a whirl.

Tim Bateson
01-10-2009, 5:58 PM
For Epilog Owners:
About 95% of my work is all done with only the Epilog Driver's Dithering functions. I own PhotoGrav 2.11/3.0, but have never mastered it & presently don't see much of a need for it - Thanks again to Epilog.
I'm hoping someone here with all the tools can run all of these options, including just the driver so we can all see a fair side by side.

For All Laser Owners:
I have done a few tests myself, but PhotoGrav can be configured in a 1,000 different ways, a tweak here a tweak there. Then there are the actual lasering variables that are endless - more speed, less power, more power, less speed, DPI, etc... It all matters and is truely difficault to do a fair compairison. Unless you have mastered all of the techniques and tools. That counts me out.:confused:

:rolleyes:My new philosophy on this subject is pick one - any one, then Master it & that will be the best tool for your business.:D

Steve Clarkson
01-10-2009, 7:19 PM
I agree with that. Rodney this little snippet refers to LPI lines per inch. What's the easy way of finding out that? Or am I not able to compute what the attached is detailing?

Frank,

Surprisingly, Rowmark has an interesting discussion about LPI, halftones, and photo engraving.....maybe this will assist you on your grail quest:

http://www.rowmark.com/mark/laser_guide/pages/photo.asp

Bill Cunningham
01-10-2009, 11:15 PM
Has anyone tried using only the Epilog Dithering options? With only a gray image photo - No PhotoGrav - no Xnview - no India Ink

This was done at the 600 dpi setting, with a 300 ppi grayscale, output using just the clipart setting in the epilog driver .. No photograv, into HD Empedor lite brown marble.. It's sharper than it looks in this fuzzy .jpg.. Setting was about 100% power/35%speed I may have even gone over it twice.. 'real' marble is very forgiving
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=51903&d=1165422300

Frank Corker
01-11-2009, 6:37 AM
Frank,
Surprisingly, Rowmark has an interesting discussion about LPI, halftones, and photo engraving.....maybe this will assist you on your grail quest:


Thanks Steve, I'll have a read.

Darren Null
01-12-2009, 6:01 PM
if I want to engrave photo on marble which size is 30x30 cm I need to operate with file 40-100 mb size. Before dithering you must have file with resolution 1,5-2 times more.
No no no no no. Absolutely not. I beg to differ etc. If you're dithering to a 1-bit image, you're dumping a load of picture information. Exactly the size it's going to be is what you want to dither. Sure, if you have to do some work on the image, make it bigger...mistakes will be minimised, and the image will look sharper when you resize it just before you dither it.

We've got a bit sidetracked from the original point, which was programs and plugins that dither into *1-BIT* images. Either black or white. No shades of grey...you either burn a hole or you don't. We have a huge variety of laser machines here, with various versions of drivers. With a 1-bit image and manual mode on the driver, you know what you're going to end up with. IMO, the dithering on my GCC driver and the native dithering in corel both suck, which is why I in particular am looking for other ways of doing things.

For black and other dark marbles, greyscale is probably better; your laser will either burn hard, or just scuff the surface, or a range between, depending upon the shade of grey that it's burning at the time. Greyscale only works on certain materials though. Black marble. Wood. Acrylic. And I agree that Photoshop is the tool of choice for greyscale.

However. 1-bit images is sort of the lowest common denominator. If you can effect the surface of a material, you can get a result with a 1-bit image. It's also a bit easier to burn...You either burn a hole or you dont. All the holes will be the same depth, so the speed and power settings are a lot less tricky to set up. When you're burning greyscale on marble -for example- the settings have to be considerably more precise...too hard and you wash out the detail as the light tones are burning heavily; too little and you only burn the darkest tones.

Dee- thanks for the test burn. It was enlightening. And the India Ink one in particular shows that what shows on screen and what you end up burning are 2 different things.
Frank- halftone is just another type of dither. Albeit a stylised cartooney one.

Frank Corker
01-12-2009, 6:50 PM
Frank- halftone is just another type of dither. Albeit a stylised cartooney one.

Actually I wouldn't agree that it's cartooney. The more I have been messing around with the settings on different things, the more cartooney the Photograv stuff is beginning to look. A really well dithered halftone is beautiful to look at, especially on dark backgrounds, more defined than one dithered with Photograv. My opinion of course.

Darren Null
01-12-2009, 7:46 PM
Fair enough. It's always seemed to me that the information density at a given resolution seemed somewhat lacking with halftones compared to -say- properly done Floyd-Steinberg dithering. Primitive in comparison, if you look at it at 100%.

But it is all optical illusions. I'll give halftoning a serious go now you've said that & see what happens

EDIT: What do you use to halftonify Frank? All the ones on my system look rather crap.

Frank Corker
01-12-2009, 8:02 PM
EDIT: What do you use to halftonify Frank? All the ones on my system look rather crap.

I'm trying a variety at the moment. The ones on xnview are pretty good.
image/convert to binary. Also looking at Van Der Lee.

Getting lost have to tell you.

Andrey Anfimov
01-13-2009, 2:06 AM
Well done, Dee!

What is the best picture? It is difficult to see details on small photo.
BW I do not use camera, I put my marble 30x30 cm in the scanner.
The lines of raster should be are perpendicular to moving of scanner head. So you will avoid some moire on a picture.

Dee Gallo
01-13-2009, 10:13 AM
Thanks, Andrey! Could not have done this experiment without all the help.

I think the best one is the India Ink, because of the contrast (granite showing as grey rather than marble's white). VERY close were your corrected greyscale, which showed the most subtle shading and detail (more than India Ink). Third was Photograv.

Thanks for the tip on using the scanner, I guess I never thought of putting a big heavy thing like that on my scanner. I was wondering how you managed to get such great big clear pictures on this site! My camera skills are not good. I'll have to try the scanner.

cheers, dee

ps- after scanning, I was trying to figure out why it was blurry - then I realized my scanner has a thin lip around the edge and the tile was sitting up on it. Oh well...

Marc Myer
01-13-2009, 1:16 PM
There's so much good information here, it's making my brain hurt.