雷晟 LTT

Tricks and Tips for Photo laser-engraving

Tricks and Tips for Photo laser-engraving

Laser-engraving photographs can amazingly show the beauty of the pictures on different materials. The substrates can be marble, acrylics, anodizing aluminum, glass, wood, and more.

LTT laser driver provides up to seven different "dithering methods" that make the photo-engraving jobs friendly and accessible.

The tricks and tips will tell how to make photo selection, photo adjusting, and the parameter value settings of the driver of LTT photo-engraving functions.

 Photo Selection

When picking photos for laser engraving, please pay attention to their resolution, brightness, contrast, and focus, making the subject obvious, which will be an extremely critical first step to get your job done quickly

Otherwise, you have to implement software like Photo-Paint, Photoshop; or GIMP to adjust the original to best fit for laser engraving.

Criteria that make the original picture suitable for laser-engraving are:

Resolution: The resolution of a digital image is better to begin with 300 dpi or above.

To check a photo's resolution on a Windows PC, select the file you want to use. Right-click on the image and then select "Properties."

A window will appear with the image's details. Go to the "Details" tab to see the image's dimensions and resolution.

Mac OSX

Checking a photo's resolution on a Mac is similar to a PC. Select the image you want to use and "Right-click" on it. Click on "Get Info"

The image information window will open. You can find the image dimension and resolution under the "More Info" tab.

Choose the theme of photos with high contrast than the background.

The picture on the right-hand side is more suitable for laser engraving than the left-hand side.

 Reprocessing the selected picture

Change Image to RGB

CorelDraw

GIMP

 Increasing resolution

As mentioned, the resolution of the pictures should be at least 300 dpi for laser engraving. To be more specific, if materials are not quickly "burned" and can restrict the burned-mark in a small area, like anodizing aluminum and acrylic, the resolution can be 500 to 600 DPI, and resolution increasing will help to achieve good engraving results.

Increasing the resolution of the selected pictures by resampling in the graphic software. For example

Coreldraw

GIMP

When to use positive and when to use negative images:

The easiest way is using positive image if the engraved graphics will be darker than the surrounding area, and
use negative image If the engraved area is lighter than the
surrounding area.

Laser Engraving Tips

 Dithering mode

What is “dithering”?

"A common use of dither is converting a grayscale image to black and white, such that the density of black dots in the new image approximates the average gray level in the original." - - Wikipedia. Dithering can help develop the dot patterns from RGB or Grayscale into raster images that are very common for laser engraving.

LTT offers seven different dithering methods for users to pick for their engraving results. It is beneficial when laser engraving on different types of materials. It is in the "Halftone" option.

Method 1: Javis
Method 2: Stevenson
Method 3: Stucki
Method 4: Floyd
Method 5: Sier
Method 6: Burkes
Method 7: Ordered

Tips: Materials that the burned dots are not quickly get dilated and overlap; like anodizing aluminum and acrylic block, are recommended to use method 7. Wood and glass, on the contrary, are advised to use method 1 or 3. However, you can find the methods that will help your work on your own choice.

Below are the seven methods comparison pictures: