How to prepare a photo to engrave [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

Augusto Pereira

06-09-2008, 8:50 AM

Forgive my innocence of the question… I never worked in that I needed your Help. Somebody could give me one "lesson" much summarized of as to work a photo in corel draw or engravelabel? Could say for steps… I think that would arrive there with a little of effort mine.

Frank Corker

06-09-2008, 7:33 PM

Hello Augusto

This is probably the best way to eplain it, you will probably need an interpreter to get it right. This uses Adobe Photoshop and not Corel but the principal will be the same in many other packages.

The instructions below are for using Adobe photoshop the parts marked like this are instructions where to find the settings
( ie File Edit Image Layer etc at the top of the screen)

Step 1) Convert to 8 bit greyscale (image/mode/greyscale)
Step 2) Resize the image to the size its getting engraved at using 150-300 ppi (150 for less detail) I suggest 300
(image/image size)
Step 3) Bump up contrast and brightness about +25 in both cases - you dont want the pic to be insipid areas of medium grey.
(image/adjusyments/brightess-contrast)
Step 4) Heres the VITAL part - use unsharp mask at 500% and a radius of 3-5 pixels - threshold 0 - this will exaggerate edges radically , but thats what you need. In fact you can do this and then STILL add another unsharp mask at 150 % , 1pixel and 0 threshold AFTER the 1st unsharp if you want even more edge detection
(filter/sharpen/unsharp mask)
Step 5) Convert to a bitmap using 125-150ppi and a diffusion pattern. (image/mode/bitmap)
Step 6) Invert to a negative if you are still going to do granite or marble if it's wood or glass ignore this step (image/adjustment/Invert)
Step 7) laser