Ordered PhotoGrav...Question before it gets here

[James Wright]

I read allot of discussion about PhotoGrav...and what an excellent job it does...so I decided to purchase it...I have a professional picture done by Olan Mills of my wife and I...and tried to do it on LaserTile with PShop Pro...Olan Mills uses such a dark background to take a picture...and the picture washes out...will PhotoGrav process some of that background out to make a better engraving ?

I attached the original and the one engraved

[Bill Cunningham]

Here is just a quick convert...As with all binary files, Don't resize it, or rotate it, or it will look like... well you know..
It was processed on the old photograv, using the generic 'cherry' setting.. I spent no time on it, it might look a little washed out around the face, but if the original photo is worked on a bit to improve the contrast it will etch quite good..

[Larry Bratton]

James:
Why not remove the background? Photopaint or Photoshop will do the job. I would never leave a background such as this one (although nice for a color photo). Photograv does a great job, but like anything else, it has to have good input in order to get good output. (the old "Garbage in..Garbage out" applies)

[Joseph B. Chritz]

Nice photo James.

Bring the photo into Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3.
Resample to the size and resolution you want. 300 dpi is a good place to start.
Go to Cutout Lab and follow the hints at the right of the screen.
A little experimenting and you will get good results quickly.

[George M. Perzel]

Hi james;
I'm with Larry- get rid of the background as it only detracts from the final- or use a soft fade vignette (see link below for instructions). http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/ht/apsvignette.htm
In addition, once you process a pic in Photograv you can always open it in Photoshop or Paint and remove the background.
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

[Doug Bergstrom]

James,
Be careful not to violate the Olan Mills copyright especially for customers.