Photos on Proofgrade Maple

Made on a Glowforge
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So I have started dabbling with photos on wood. I have mostly been happy with the results. Proofgrade is nice for this, too, because of the masking. (I know, cleaning up the masking after the print is a pain, but a few experiments have convinced me that the masking preserves some detail and keeps the laser from over-burning the wood (which happens even on the light :proofgrade: engrave setting).

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Of course, my backup laser safety officer. Even with all the black in the picture, the image turned out pretty good.

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This picture, though, suffered an unfortunate condition in the wood itself and had to be reprinted. Iā€™m thinking a little bit of grain in the wood or something creating this artifact. Maybe @staff can take a peek and see.

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The reprint with the same image came out clean.

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How are you cleaning up the pictures (so good) that they show up so good on wood?

Do you modify the Proofgrade settings?

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Yeah those are some great prints. :grinning:

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Leaving the Proofgrade defaults. Pre-processing, I mostly just toss them into Photoshop and desaturate. That gives me a good notion how they will translate contrast-wise. I occasionally adjust the levels a tad trying to get away from 255 more than absolute 0, but most of those images have nothing beyond desaturateā€¦some not even that much.

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Can you give a more detailed walkthrough of how you print pictures like this? I was trying to print a picture the other day and my friendā€™s dog came out looking like a demon. :frowning: Not sure if Iā€™m missing something in the pre-processing or something in the glowforge settings.

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Iā€™ll try to put something a little later. Some pictures just wonā€™t turn out well because of contrast or darkness, though with a little adjustment, some might still work.

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can you send me a copy of the picture that doesnā€™t turn out?

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Those look fantastic!

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Thank you for the tips. With just barely any changes in Affinity Photo and exporting to a PNG, this is my first acceptable engraving on some cheap 1/8 Basswood Craft ply from Home Depot.

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The wood grain of the ply gives the wood background depth and texture.

Now I have some photo tips, I can prep it for Maple Ply.

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Iā€™ve found that good contrast photos that arenā€™t too dark need little or no fiddling if Iā€™m engraving on masked wood. Hardwoods might be slightly better just because softer woods seem to burn deeper and darker.

Love your result.

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Looks pretty good! I havenā€™t tried Basswood, might need to give it a shot! :grinning:

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Home Depot woods (solid and ply) tip:

Order up some disc magnets (DIYMAG 15pcs 1.26ā€D x 0.08ā€H Powerful Neodymium Disc Magnets ) and sandwich the material between them in at least 3 points.

ā€”Magnetā€”
ā€”Materialā€”
ā€”Magnetā€”
ā€”Honeycombā€”

It really flattens out the material and during cuts, it almost completely eliminates honeycomb flash back (especially with acrylic) without needing to mask the back of the material.

EDIT: Pictures

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Should also let the smoke out at the end.

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Very nice to know. I take it you include the lower magnet in the ā€˜thicknessā€™?

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Yes, with acrylic it is almost eerie to watch the smoke to creep along the underside until it gets to an edge to be vented.

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I am to lazy for that. I just slow down the speed a few points from the Proofgrade settings (on cuts).

Will need to compare the engrave performance/quality with and without the thickness adjustment.

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These look wonderful! Glad the backup laser safety officer gets something for all his hard work.

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He does work very hard. These days, he even monitors the Glowforge while it is engraving and cutting. If there is anything that scares him less than the Glowforge, Iā€™m not sure what it is.

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