Vary power or dots?

[smokehouse95]

Hello, I have been making these engraves and they sell really well however, I am looking for advice on improvement, I currently use convert to Dots simply because I dont really know what I should be using these are 10x15 engraves and take an average of 4 hours on my GF Pro. Could someone please evaluate my image and tell me if Its ok where it is or advise the other settings (vary power)?

Thank you!

[beerfaced]

I think they look great just like that.

[PrintToLaser]

I can think of nothing to improve on what you have there!

[davidgal2]

I think both of them look fantastic. I can see why they are popular with your customers.

[deirdrebeth]

Vary power is great if what you want is a depth difference for the different colours. Convert to Dots or Patterns everything is the same level, but with a different concentration on the engrave.

I concur that what you’ve got going looks great. This might help you get an idea of the differences though:

SD Graphic Photo Engrave Comparison

I needed to do a fairly large photo engrave, and I only had one piece of material - so I went through all my defaults to compare before I picked one. Since I had photos I thought I’d share with all ya’ll. I generally find that SD Graphic Convert-to-Dots is the way to go for photos, but the preview for that always looks terrible so I doubt myself. Here’s the proof The first block is Convert to Dots (CtD), the second Convert to Patterns (CtP), and the third Vary Power (VP) [SD Preview] Clearly…

[cynd11]

Same. I just don’t see how it could be any better. It certainly far exceeds any photo engraving I’ve done.

Oh hey, happy birthday @davidgal2 !

[rvogt]

I totally agree! These are awesome. You might just try a vary power and compare but I can’t think it will be much better!

[rbtdanforth]

This is what you want to use variable power for…

when you want actual distance vertically.

With images, dots or patterns is best, and higher LPI makes for smaller dots, but longer times.

For an image like your horse you may want to fiddle with the minimum and maximum dots where the edge is hard to see (like the nose area that you may want to increase the definition a bit or at the other end in the trees where there could be more definition from all black). In Gimp I have found great pixel manipulation possible to accomplish the same thing or creating a light score line to bring out what would be hard to see otherwise.

[ca_worth]

not really sure how to improve that.

[smokehouse95]

Thank you all so much for the great compliments you all made my day! heck more like my year lol I just seen these replies tonight (28 days later) hahaha