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how is photo engraving done?
Hi Guys,
has anyone ever tried to engrave a photograph with an Roland EGX-300?
If it can be done what is the best way to tackle it. What happens to the different grey tones, are these build up by using different thickness of cutting tools and have to be changed while engraving or can be achieved by using different angles?Just curious, otherwise I’stick to line work.
Joseph
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4 Replies
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Roland have a machine called Metaza which produces photos onto metal by using impact rather than line engraving.
Jim -
Thanks Jim.
I wasn’t looking for halftone type of photo engraving. I was wondering if for an example get an image say a face and in someway convert it to enable a type of line engraving with the ability that it is still recognisable.And having the EGX-300 engraving I thought to make use of it.
Joseph
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You can do it , but have to jump thru hoops to do so. If you have signlab/engravelab , it has a routine to allow greyscale images to be engraved using various vector strategies. If not , you have to capture the photo in 8 bit greyscale , apply whatever contrasts , edge detection etc you can to enhance it , then convert it to a 1 bit black and white with a VERY gross halftone (bear in mind your tip has width and the halftone has to be bigger than the width of the tip other wise one dot eats into another)
Use a program like Coreltrace to trace it as a vector image into Coreldraw and send it from there. The bitmap will consist of solid black dots and areas and can be traced filled and sent to the engraver as hatch islands . You can apply corrections such as offsetting inwards to compensate for tip width here too. You can set various areas various colours and control depth too in this traced bitmap format.
Photograv is a program laser guys use , but it works well for everything up to the trace section and will give you the 1 bit image and you are a lot more in control of what the halftone pattern will be. You would have to tell it that you are using a very low dpi engraver. I would
There are other ways like use Artcam to extrude surfaces based on greyscale images and this will translated directly into 3 axis interpolation on your EGX and you can careve the image in 3d with it.
At the end of it all , your results will be variable and might not be worth it. Laser engravers are ideal for this application as they act like dot matrix printers but much smoother.
Try it using photopaint and coreltrace/draw. -
Thank you once again Rodney.
Your comments are certainly an inspiration. This is something New to me since I am usually in the Offset Litho Business. I like machinery and having something different will sure make life a lot more interesting. 😀
And might come in handy adding an extra Tip. 🙂Joseph
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