LASER ENGRAVE PHOTOS - how to GET IT RIGHT.
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- čas přidán 17. 10. 2016
- Get your half tones right for laser engraving, every time.
This video shows you how to get there, and understand the critical concepts.
Learn a little about scale, dithering, and halftone.
In this example I use GIMP, but Photoshop, or other good package will do this also.
I use RDWorks, on linux.
But I would imagine any laser software that handles raster images will benefit from these concepts.
Note laser is not spelled Lazer ;)
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"Oldie but goodie" Video. Thanks for it!
Brilliant, I've had many hit or miss results, different materials, different Image settings, many different laser power, time on, etc. settings, This was VERY HELPFUL, Thanks Man.
Fantastic video with everything explained with great clarity. Total credit to you, your process and your ability to get it across in
Thanks for taking the time. I'm going to give this a try when I get a minute.
saved me a lot of time to figure it out, you want your laser to sound like a dot matrix printer !!
Indeed ;)
I have viewed many videos about this subject and I must say that YOU are the one who has it done and explained correctly. Your method has worked for me in the most fantastic ways. Thank you so much for taking time to create this video. Great work!
Thanks, I found the same when I was looking for a guide.
I'm glad to be of help. :)
This is a well thought out tutorial which clearly explains the way to prepare a photo for laser engraving and how pixels are manipulated for a laser to interpret into a picture. Many thanks for this video as it has enabled me to produce a photo onto slate. Just one thing, if you are using an Epilog machine, change the RGB output to Greyscale in the print manager before sending to the Job Manager and the picture will appear as it should. Otherwise all you get is a black image where the one colour of the pixels (black) will be interpreted as a total black image. Full marks to this gentleman for putting this video online. Brian Walker, UK.
awesome video! thank you for clearing up the matter. much gratitude.
Thank you very much for this tutorial. I have been struggling with this for ages and finally figured it out after your video. Still have some fine-tuning to do but at least now I understand what I'm working with.
I am glad to be of help :)
Thanks. Very informative. Especially the explanation of matching the machine's capability to the pixels of the desired image
Nice job. Thx, Michael. Helped a lot. Keep up the good work...
Thank you for the video. After a long time i found a method that actually works. Much appreciated work you have done.
I am glad it was useful to you :)
Awesome Video, thanks for the explanation!
It's 2020, 4 year old video but helped me a lot. THANK YOU!!!!
What are you dividing the size with?
You mentioned about getting the resolution right based on your laser capability (0.2mm). When you input the scale resolution into gimp you used /.2 but it was set to PX (pixel), not MM. Can you explain how to understand converting scale properly? Its unclear to me.
Thanks for this video! This is by far the best I've seen about getting the best settings for your photos. Are you using an air assist on your laser? What laser are you using? thanks!
I use the stock air assist, which is a fairly low flow rate, certainly no pressure.
My laser is a cheap Chinese unit.
czcams.com/video/dotmE3_YQCk/video.html
@@helmreichenterprises8391 Thank you sir! My laser engraver doesn't have an air assist built in. Do you think a simple blower like this would work:
www.aliexpress.com/item/Big-Sale-12V-Humidifier-Air-Blower-Parts-Turbine-Type-Snail-Type-Shaft-Fan-Accessories-Humidifier-Parts/32904872008.html
Hi good day. I'm struggling for almost a week. May I know what min and max power, and speed did you use? Is there a possibility that your engrave will become worst because of the power and speed that you use? Thanks!
Fantastic! I could see that you use GIMP, but the second program I didn't see. Can you tell me which your second program.
thanks in advanced
RDWorks for the laser, Gimp for the photo edit.
great video. thanks for help
I'm glad to be of help.
I have learned heaps about so many things from other youtube videos.
It's a great resource. :)
super nice job thinks
This video is awesome! Really shows what to look for and how to set it up. I followed along but got bad results when importing into Rdworks, I saved as jpg just as you did but when I zoom in after its in rdworks it combines a lot of dots and forms more lines (horizontal) and looses all the nice spacing that all the hard work was for in the first place. Any idea's on why rdworks reinterprets the file? would be nice on your video if you showed what the image looks like in rdworks after it is all done.
Gimp 2.8.20
Rdworks 8.01.18
I have a later video that shows setting dots per mm in Gimp.
RDWorks just goes with the flow that Gimp sets up if you go that way.
RDWorks does not show these images on the screen very well.
This video shows RDWorks at about the 12 minute mark.
I been messing with this off and on all day and finally got it into rdworks with dots spaced evenly just as it was in gimp. Two things I am thinking it was it either the 72 dpi was not set to 300 dpi when scaling image or it worked because I opened up the advanced settings during the export of the jpg and unchecked "Optimize" and also unchecked "Progressive". I am laser engraving black granite and the test came out awesome. Truly hats off my deepest appreciation for you taking the time to post these videos!
Awesome :)
What do you use to seal the boards before you burn image?
I happened to use Osmo, which is an oil wax.
There are a few, but this is one.
www.osmoaustralia.com.au/timber-finishes/wood-finishes/polyx-oil-rapid/
Amazing work Sir!
I bought a K40 laser yesterday and im still testing engraves, Im doing photo engraves on MDF.
I find your video very helpful , so I thank you for this.
However I want to contact you so we can discuss like a private session on this if this is something you can provide of course.
I would be more than happy to contribute to you/your channel for this activity. Let me know your thoughts.
Hi friend, I noticed that your engraver is blazing fast. Which controller do you use? is it 32 bit? What is the wattage of your laser module? Thanks for the great video.
it is a 50watt unit, it uses a Ruida controller, I can only speculate as to whether it is 32 bit, but the performance of the controller is impressive, I can't imagine an eight-bit unit doing this ;)
just wondering on the final image, there is somewhat like mesh like finish. is thar the material surface or due the engraving process?
That is kinda the whole problem, you have only on / off, and about 200 DPI.
That is why video exists, haw to get reasonable tone depth given those constraints.
The 'dots', get a little blurred, all photo prints, both colour & greyscale have this issue, what they do for the photo printers is create a _LOT_ of dots for example six of my photo printers produce 5774 DPI which produces around 30,000,000 in every square inch.
These laser machines are good for about 40,000 dots in the same space.
Helmreich Enterprises i see. interesting technique. i have tested in dithering but it is only black or white. i am using photoshop so conversion to bitmap only has halftone option without the position option like your example. will test that out and see how it turns out. thanks for the video insight. 👍
Cary Andrae , there are two points, I am certain Photoshop will have equivalent functions, and Gimp is a free download for all systems, it is open source.
I believe the Photoshop equivalents are error diffusion, and ordered, they are the terms I remember from Corel photo paint.
look for similar expressions in Photoshop, or download Gimp from gimp.org so as to have identical software to the demonstration.
I hope that helps.
PS error diffusion is equvalent to Floyd Steinberg, ordered is equivalent to positioned.
Cheers, Michael.
Helmreich Enterprises Noted on that. Will test out the options in photoahop. but your video would be a good reference on to look out for. thanks again😊
I really having a hard time doing this. I just cant choose a layer when I import a picture. Everything works fine with cutting and engraving vector files, but when I import a picture there is no layer set and the Mode is dot. Could you please help me? RD Works V8.00.32 Laser : K60
I am having trouble trying to work out where you mean.
Do you mean in Gimp, or RDWorks.
Are you aiming to mix raster and vector in the same job?
Great video. Only problem, I can't quite figure out how to do this in Photoshop. I understand GIMP is free and I could download it and use it, but I already have photoshop and use it for many other things. It would be a bit of a hassle if I had to go between apps all the time just to do this for images. All help appreciated though. Thanks!
I am sure Photoshop has equivalent functionality.
As a Linux user, I stick with open source software.
What OS are you using?
Helmreich Enterprises Mac, El Capitan. Photoshop has color indexing, but the black and white functions don't do quite the same thing. I downloaded GIMP and attempted to do exactly what you do but now the print software does something quite ugly. Full Spectrum Laser software RetinaEngrave3d is unfortunately not very smooth yet.
I might fire up my old Mac Mini, and see what gives.
It may be a matter of converting to one bit, or lineart, and playing with interpolation settings.
If I get that going on my lil' ole Mac I will post a vid.
Linux has very easy ways of dealing with open source software, Apple tries to limit the use.
There are lots of additions to GIMP, that are up to you to bring together if you use MAC, or Windows.
On Linux it is just an extra click away, and many are thrown in by default any way.
I am off to rig up my old mac.....
Thanks for your help. I think its a combination of my laser's print software and my lack of knowledge in using it. I've tried many times to render a decent image on glass and its very difficult.
What are you dividing the size with?
The desired resolution of the final engraving.
The machine paths must match the resolution of your image.
I chose 0.2mm for this image.
very Dry but otherwise informative. good work sir
No, the problem was that I could not set a layer for a picture in RDworks.
Its was a software issue, I got a new version, now I do not have any problems.
2 days of work for nothing.
Anyway, thanks for the video and for your reply!
All good, I am happy that things are working out.
Cheers, Michael.
thks but too long video