LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

Try this pic at 25watt (50% pwr on your machine) at 400mms...25%pwr at 200mm/s use 0.1 scan interval I haven't tried this pic yet but I am going too right now

Teena Stewart wrote: Sun Mar 24, 2019
I want something that looks more 3-D. Have redesigned my design several times and am going from bad to worse. Attached is a photos of a look I am trying for. The bird looks 3-D and has some shading. Is it possible to shade with my 50W laser? My guess is this is a different below surface process.

Attempt # 3 at my redesign involved making sections of my design gray, but the laser can't seem to read gray, only the black which it etches. Is this correct? The only other thing I can think of doing is to do thin lines where I want it to seem gray so that they are separated and appear shaded to t he eye. Any suggestions?

The short answer is yes, the laser can do shades of gray. But first we have to understand that we're talking about a laser and not a printer. The color that you get when the laser hits the material is dependent on the power of the laser beam and the kind of material. For example, when you laser a piece of wood or paper, the spot hit by the laser turns brown or black. When you laser a piece of glass or stone, the spot hit by the laser turns white. If I remember correctly, you do most of your lasering on glass.

I think you want to create your original artwork as a bitmap (save it as JPG or BMP) in whatever software you use to create it (Corel, Paint, etc.).

Then, when lasering, tick the "Output Direct" box on the Layer Parameter.
You probably will need to experiment with the Bitmap handler to get the settings just right. See Russ' videos, especially the ones about lasering an image onto slate. He did a bunch of videos about lasering pictures onto various materials - binge-watching them will probably prove to be very useful.

Jeff Stewart wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 Pete - I'm helping Teena with this.
Watt and mm's - is that something that is done in the layer perimeter? We're new at this.
Jeff

Yes - see picture for a clearer explanation

Teena Stewart wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 Thanks Pete. It does look more 3-D. The challenge with this is thinking backwards when I design. Things that I would normally do as light are dark and vice versa which creates a bit of mental gymnastics for me. I really like the flowers. And the white lines make the feathers show. I think I need to reverse the order of darkness on the bird body. Jeffrey Aley, thanks for the input too. I will check back in after I fiddle some more and share some more pictures. I can see where putting this on a clear background when designing is important. That's why you saved as png, Pete?

Yes - JPG does not support a transparent back ground
Clear/transparent back ground = PNG

I use another piece of software to aid in creating some of my engravings - It is called photograv.
http://www.photograv.com/ - it still requires manipulation but with trial and error I have been able to produce some fair engravings.

You can achieve the same end state without it see this post viewtopic.php?f=110&t=3549&hilit=photoshop

Bottom line you must create a bit map - the size a spacing of pixilation determines appearance. Glass is a difficult surface to engrave and achieve different gradients. the process is not dis-similar to other materials but there is less room for errors. Cheap glass, trial and error and patients are my only recommendations after showing you my trials and errors.

This video shows some tricks to edit and image - this is not the perfect process but shows some tools you can use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJYELhfUwjs

Here is a good and simple process that is the basic process of everything I have listed above
https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to ... ing-Photo/

Teena Stewart wrote: Mon Mar 25, 2019 Thanks Pete. It does look more 3-D. The challenge with this is thinking backwards when I design. Things that I would normally do as light are dark and vice versa which creates a bit of mental gymnastics for me. I really like the flowers. And the white lines make the feathers show. I think I need to reverse the order of darkness on the bird body. Jeffrey Aley, thanks for the input too. I will check back in after I fiddle some more and share some more pictures. I can see where putting this on a clear background when designing is important. That's why you saved as png, Pete?

In the bitmap handler, you can invert light & dark (like a photographic negative). That may save you from the gymnastics!

Regards,

-Jeff

As part of your learning process, I suggest you create a row of 1 inch squares, with the first being white, the next being a very light grey, and so on, until the last one which should be black.

Laser that row of squares onto your material (glass) to see how it looks. Adjust the settings (dithering, power/speed) until you can see all the gradients between the squares. By experimenting with the settings, you'll develop a "feel" for how the laser operates and you'll have a better idea of how to get your drawings to turn out the way you want.

Good luck!

actually, you have to remember that the laser result is not in any way "proportional" to the grayscale of the image, especially on glass!

on paper/cardboard, in some way, more power equals more "brown".. on glass, i think that there's a threshold, under which there is nothing or almost, and above you have a "white" dot, but there will be no grayscale. on plexiglass, if the power is too much, there will be no "frosted" effect.

the solution is to "dither" the image. instead of having "surfaces" of "grey", you have tiny dots of black/white, and viewed from a distance it appears grey.

and on glass, you will get surface with "white" dots and transparent dots, and the result will be gray.

rdworks can do this, once you import your BMP you have to play with the settings (DPI, dithering method). the correct setting will be somewhere between 100 and 256 dots per inch (more than that, a "pixel" will be too tiny for the machine effective resolution), with black and white dithering, and the line interval must matches the DPI (if you set the image at 256 DPI, the line interval must be 0.1mm (because 0.1 * 256 = 25.6mm = 1 inch))

follow russ video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9KwuJh1RhA

or the serie starting with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0vUlOHjvkk

Take a look at the link below - it will give you a good idea how to work in photoshop to engrave a pic
https://cartonus.com/how-to-laser-engraving-photo/


Here are some other possibilities you can try with photoshop - I have installed these files on my machine without issues

Maybe I did not see it and they already clarified it, but in the latest images I see settings like 25/25 200 mm/s and I, the only way that I have managed to record in 3D with a grayscale image is with important differences in the power .

Example :
min power: 10%
max power: 50%
vel: I think I would try at 50 mm/s

Martín.-