Mothers day gift that is going viral at work or, How I got hooked on engraving

I did an engrave Thursday with a photo. Our team really dialed in the Proofgrade settings: it looked fantastic when I engraved with the paper on, but looked visibly worse with the paper off - amazing how sensitive it can be. My understanding is that the physics team has identified distinct behaviors of the paper layer, the adhesive, the plywood veneer, and the veneer core.

Lots of work to be done to make this perfect per-material, but it’s already coming along amazingly.

16 Likes

I’m really looking fwd to seeing where it ends up. I’m guessing you were using gfui that is two or three iterations ahead of the PRUs.
Late last year you suggested gray scaling before printing but with this build I see no difference between submitting color or B&W, the software handles it all great as long as it is reasonably bright and sharp.

5 Likes

Was that a color photo you engraved? That’s awesome! :relaxed:

5 Likes

Yes! I tried dithering to B&W but after trying it both ways I decided that is just a wasted step. You can fix a lot with photo software but I’ve had to reject some dark indoor shots Outside with intresting high contrast background works great as you can see.

5 Likes

You will lose quality by dithering - submit it as greyscale. Color’s OK too, but can obscure problems like, for example, bright red and bright green look identical in greyscale.

13 Likes

Oh, okay, so reducing the color down to greyscale is as much for us to spot trouble before it happens as for the cloud software. Thanks for that insight. This is why I am so amazed at how well everything has come out. I know that I am not an expert at this, just the opposite and yet…

10 Likes

Photoshop and Gimp both give you the choice of mapping colors to greyscale in different ways that offer more control over the final product, so you have more options by doing that too.

9 Likes

So the frame and image are all just one piece of wood, right?

Pretty damn nifty that I even have to ask that no matter which answer I get.

6 Likes

I’ve done some that way but no, these have the frame in a contrasting wood. Cherry or walnut for the frame, maple for the photo.

The whole thing is a 1/2 inch thick as there is a 1/8 layer for the frame, a 1/8 for the photo its self, and then two pieces creating a T-slot mount. I save a lot of wood by having the mount as just strips across the top and then repeated across the bottom. I have two sets of files for this part as they are different for portrait or landscape.

9 Likes

This… is… awesome.

Any chance you want to show a shot of that and/or share the files?

Thanks!

5 Likes

Can you give more details regarding the process? That is, what program did you use? Were you using default GF settings for picture engraving, if there currently are any? One piece of wood or was the frame a standard picture frame that you inserted the engraved piece into? Everyone is welcome to chime in. Thanks in advance…

2 Likes

For my photo print I made it greyscale, boosted contrast, sharpened, and then used the Proofgrade default to engrave it. I did this in Photoshop but any photo editing program would work.

11 Likes

@takitus has a tutorial on prepping a photo for engraving in the Raster Programs Matrix. (There’s a couple for Photoshop, one for GIMP and one for Paintshop.)

5 Likes

I’ll tell you what has worked for me, your milage may vary.

  • Start with a good photo, preferably outside but definitely well lit.
  • Run it through a photo editing program to optimize it. I’ve mostly used Photoshop express but if I was trying to get an iffy file to work I’d go into something more advanced. For me, that would be GIMP.
  • Normally don’t dither, more pixels are usually better with the way things are with the GFUI.
  • There is no need to reduce a color shot to B&W for the GFUI sake but it may well help you identify a problem.
  • Print a small version on a scrap before committing to an 8x10
  • I know this goes against gospel but I am getting best results with the mask off and medium engrave setting.
7 Likes

Believe it or not I’ve been so excited about the fronts that I have forgotten to photo the backs! I will do that when I’ve done the next one.
As to sharing the file, I’m not sure I want yours to look exactly like mine so why don’t I just show you how it is done?
Well poo! I just went to my models and they are messed up with components missing.

Okay, here are the components and you’ll have to imagine until I get a photo. The keyhole goes to the outside with the large slot under. This way everything sits on two screws quite nicely.

11 Likes

@takitus

Thank you all so much for your info / help on this…engraving photos is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to buy a GF…

Btw, as a teaser, and as a thank you, and not to derail, sorry, but I hope to post a metal engraving project & the how to in a couple of days…mwa ha ha ha ha…I’m calling dibs on that! :smile:

And @dan: Oooh, the thoughts about where it could go, if you could develop a printing head, that maybe uses some special ink…I’ll explain it all when I post the project.

4 Likes

I’ve been following this thread with interest. I am confused about something…if I download an already BW photo into the GUI, it shows like a negative. Obviously, there’s something I’m missing here.

?

1 Like

That is just how the GFUI acts, it will print right when you push the button.

5 Likes

Now that I’m started down this dark path I’m really looking forward to seeing that. I want to get good on several materials so I can offer different looks and options.

2 Likes

You’re gonna love it!!

3 Likes