I’m an Inkscape user and I’ve been working on photo tiles. Using Jpeg files and Inkscape’s Extensions-Raster-HSB and contrast settings, things are starting to turn out okay!
These are Home Depot’s white tiles (about $1 a piece if you buy a case of them). Full speed, full power, no tape or covering needed - I tried and it didn’t seem necessary in the end. Some tacky glue and felt on the back and it’s a sweet coaster to keep discreetly on the desk at work!
I haven’t yet tried to manually adjust the lines per inch but I wonder if that would improve the resolution. Anyone have any experience with that?
The ceramic tiles are porous, but the glaze is not. When the laser catches into the glaze, it reveals the porous interior. Color over the whole thing with a black sharpie, then use rubbing alcohol and cotton balls to wipe it off the unetched areas.
The whole thing is mess and has a kind of primal satisfaction! I recommend practicing with simple shapes or text, then experimenting with the levels and contrast of a photograph. Some other users have done very detailed walk-throughs.
Interesting–will try dyeing some leather before etching…
For post-etching on acrylic I’ve found leather dye is a great way to color the etched areas, as it wipes cleanly off the smooth acrylic–wonder if will do the same on tile? Another fun test!
A perhaps interesting tidbit - the stapler in the movie was painted for the movie by the prop department. Swingline did not have a stapler that color. Later they had a limited edition of the movie red stapler (I have one on my desk at work). It’s not exactly red, it’s a muted crimson/claret/poppy color. Not sure what the pantone color code would be but if you try to replicate it, don’t use a bright red.
After I had done the picture, I went back and tried to die the stapling rent. Since it had already been left, the red didn’t show.
A few days ago I tried to do a design with a portion red and a portion black, but as the rubbing alcohol was stripping the excess off of the glazed areas, the black seeped into the red area and it all turned black anyway. I might have to do something with tape to prevent it from happeni A few days ago I tried to do a design with a portion red and a portion black, but as the rubbing alcohol was stripping the excess off of the glazed areas, the black seeped into the red area and it all turned black anyway. Wondering if painter’s striping tape might help?
No way to help ya here. I used callipers to measure my tile - it was 0.3 inches. I’d recomment investing $5 in a pair of digital calipers for just this purpose.
Instead of using alcohol to clean the tile of the excess ink, use a dry melamine sponge (Mr Clean Magic Eraser type). Let the ink dry overnight and then using some elbow grease rub it with the sponge.
You can also get rid of the ink in the engraves if you soak the tile in bleach for a day or two. Then you can start over with inking.
Loads of tools to measure… my tile was about 3/8", so used 0.275 focal height, and rather pleased with the result! I did put masking tape over the tile (since it has a crazed glaze, didn’t want a huge mess if the glaze cracked up completely during the test).
And really like the way it came out–all I did was wash the surface to remove the soot (always needed w/ leather) and helps remove the tape, but it left a nice grey color, so may not even try the dye over top. It also seems it has not penetrated the top glaze, so advantage the tile is still water proof–so could actually use it as a tile… hmmm, ideas for my kitchen tiling project!
