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Albert Nix
04-13-2008, 9:24 AM
I just purchased a 40W MII from Signwarehouse. It came with LXI 8 engrave software, and photograv. The pinnalce engrave pack came with thousands of images but they all seem to be in GIF format and potograve will not open them and if i send them to LXI they are so pixilated that it would take hours to clean one up Also most are just wire frame images. How is the best way to make them usable? I know these are be basic question but I have to start somewhere.
Thanks:
A Nix
Darren Null
04-13-2008, 10:16 AM
Photograv is a fussy eater and will only accept 8-bit (greyscale) Bitmap (BMP) files. You can convert them as needed, or maybe there's a freebie bulk conversion utility out on the net somewhere.

Not familiar with LXI, but it might be worth investing in CorelDRAW- that's what most of us engraver types use. Also, the pixillation may be caused by your GIF files being too small. you could try converting them to vector images before importing them into LXI.

A bit vague, I know, but it is a start.
Just found a freebie vector app:
http://www.inkscape.org/
Jim Watkins
04-13-2008, 2:22 PM
You must have received an old version of Photograv with your purchase. Version 3.0 will accept (jpg, tif, bmp, png), but I don't know about GIF images.

If it doesn't accept GIF's, then some sort of conversion will have to take place to one of those image types.
Craig Hogarth
04-13-2008, 3:10 PM
Check with photograv. I know that they were offering free upgrade to 3.0 if you purchased 2.1 after a certain date.
Jim Watkins
04-13-2008, 4:26 PM
Good call Craig. THe date was August 2007 or later gets a free upgrade certificate. You only pay the $10 shipping and handling.

I know because I waited a month to buy it from my distributer so that I would qualify for the free upgrade.
Jerry Hay
04-13-2008, 7:32 PM
There are other files of the images on those cd's they are .plt files. they are to be opened with a plotter. you can create a new image in corel draw and then import the .plt file that will be a line drawing you can work with. I usually export the file after I bring it in that will make it a .bmp. the gif files are for the preview