Hi all! Decided to try my first engrave based on my baby’s footprint stamp (he’s 2 months old now!)
Overall, I didn’t do much to further optimize the image, though I’m sure I’d get even better results if I did. In short, here’s what I did:
Scanned the footprint using a regular HP scanner
Greyscaled the image
Uploaded it to the Glowforge UI
Decided to do a manual engrave & did an ordered dither (45 min level / 90 max level)
Popped in 1/8 inch maple hardwood
Engraved it! Took about 5 minutes
I then decided after the fact to cut it out with a hole for a key ring or ornament hook. This was a good test of the camera alignment. I rescanned the bed with the engraved foot, and dragged in an outline for the cut I created in inkscape on top of it. The alignment was spot on!
I’ll do a few more of these for family members & will probably iterate on the process to see if I can get even better results! I’m open for any recommendations!
I’m thinking that deserves edgelit acrylic for a nightlight - more useful for infant feeding times than it is for any other period in a person’s life. (possibly excepting hotel stays.)
That’s the plan! I actually did it, but didn’t tone down the score settings & it ended up cutting through the proofgrade in some areas where the engrave was deeper. Easy fix though!
When you created the initial footprint imprint, what did you use as “ink” to transfer from foot to paper? Or does your baby now have a permanent marking on his/her foot?
So I’m new here, but our kindergarten teacher would love to make these for the parents this year. I am slowly learning how this works and loving it, but what is a dither and how do I set this up for a good result with handprints? Thanks.
Dithering is a method of fooling the eye into recognizing shades of gray out of a pure black and white image by spacing the dots farther apart for lighter shades. (Think of a photo printed in a newspaper.)
If you use the Convert to Dots or Photo Engrave options in the Glowforge interface, it automatically does the dithering for you.
