@Dan has let us know that none of this mess is necessary to engrave photos on the glowforge, so I guess you can take a look at this and be thankful you dont have to go through all this trouble! awesome!
As forum users are starting to get glowforges, I figured I might as well put up this tutorial for everyone to reference when preparing their photos for engraving. This will give a very similar result to what you would get using photograv.
Ill just do one you guys have seen already, since I have the engrave on hand:
Open the file in photoshop.
Top menu: Go to Image → Image Size.
Change the resolution to the native resolution of the laser you are cutting on. Mine is 300 so Im setting it to that.
Make sure AFTER you change the resolution (DPI) that you set the width or height in the pixel dimensions section back to 100 PERCENT.(photoshop changes this automatically)
ok, now were ready to begin.
click on the image layer and go to
Top menu: Image → Auto Tone
This should fix most major contrast and/or color issues in non post processed photos.
Next youll want to create a few adjustment layers:
Top menu: Go to Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Black & White
Top menu: Go to Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Brightness & Contrast
Top menu: Go to Layer → New Adjustment Layer → Curves
Set the Brightness & Contrast to 25 each (more if necessary).
It should look like this now:
At this point youll want to save your file as a PSD, because we are going to be doing some destructive processes next.
Once everything is saved select the image layer and go to
Top menu: Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask
Use the following settings:
Go back to
Top menu: Filter → Sharpen → Unsharp Mask
and use these settings this time:
Your Image should look like this now:
It may look quite a bit messier than before, but trust me, when lasering you need to have strongly defined edges.
Next you will want to go to
Top menu: Layer → Flatten Image (hit ok when it tells you it will delete the black and white adjustment layer)
Top menu: Image → Mode → Bitmap
Use whatever the native resolution of the laser cutter here. (not LPI, but DPI)
It will convert your image to a stippled image and should look like this: (it looks better if you zoom in)
Go to File → Save As
and save your image as a BMP
I usually also put the image dimensions in mm in the name and what im going to do with it (cut, engrave, etc) in the name. You have to manually put image dimensions in the chinese laser software. Cant wait to not have to deal with that!
Now youre ready to take it and try out the engrave!