Granite Question???

[Mark Koenig]

I've just started playing with absolute black granite...

The image looks good but the contrast (lighter hues) do not come out very well... Best results so far have been 25% power, 90% speed @ 600 DPI... I'm sure that the problem is how I have altered the picture...

What I Did:
Black and white scanned image.
Adjusted to a sharp contrast.
Inverted colors so the black on the pic should be light on the piece (I think).

Anyone have some tips on "best practice" for preparing an image for granite??? Does Photograv make that big of a difference???

Or, are my settings way off???

[Steven Smith]

Did you convert the image to a halftone? Mr. Frank Corker posted a .zip file named 'millie.zip' earlier this month (june 07) on this thread:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=598430

It really helped me see what would work... I aimed to duplicate the 'look' and was amazed how my project turned out. A tip of my hat to Frank!
I'm sure Photograve is a fine piece of software, but if one has the time and knows what to look for, you can save the expense.

[Mark Koenig]

Did you convert the image to a halftone? Mr. Frank Corker posted a .zip file named 'millie.zip' earlier this month (june 07) on this thread:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=598430

It really helped me see what would work... I aimed to duplicate the 'look' and was amazed how my project turned out. A tip of my hat to Frank!
I'm sure Photograve is a fine piece of software, but if one has the time and knows what to look for, you can save the expense.

Da-Da-Da-Dang!!!

Wow!!! I was way off on how to adjust the picture...

I saw that post did not pay attention since I was more into the "less expensive" materials at the time... You'd never think that an image that grainy would turn out so awesome!!!

[Bill Cunningham]

It's not really grainy.. If you look close, you will see it's a true black and white file (i.e. binary or 2 bit) not a 8 bit grey, or 24bit colour this is the key to engraving photographs, and this is what photograv does to the file (among other tweaks) to make it engravable.. It only looks grainy because your computer screen is not really designed to reproduce binary images...

[Mark Koenig]

It's not really grainy.. If you look close, you will see it's a true black and white file (i.e. binary or 2 bit) not a 8 bit grey, or 24bit colour this is the key to engraving photographs, and this is what photograv does to the file (among other tweaks) to make it engravable.. It only looks grainy because your computer screen is not really designed to reproduce binary images...

Can I do this in Corel X3 instead og Photograv??? Need to make a display for the next show...

Thanks Mark,

[Bill Cunningham]

Yup.. Rodney posted a good guide to using photopaint etc.. to unsharp and reproduce photographs.. Do a search, it's bound to come up.. If time is money, and you need constant results, invest in photograv..

[Mark Koenig]

Thanks for the advice Bill... The vast majority of my business is photo engraving so I'll invest in the software... Going to start a new thread to see if I can get this one photo run through Photograv this one time... I desperately need it for the show... It's my wife's parents wedding picture and she also wants it for the wall...

Mark.