Agate is one of my favorite materials for things like Christmas ornaments and in this case a baptismal medallion for my new little nephew.
Photos of babies are one of the harder thing to produce well. They just don’t have much contrast and are just soooo white. I’m very happy with how this one came out.
Rather than use a traditional halftone i used the cutline photoshop filter from andromeda at 65 line to produce an etched appearance for the photo. The laser alone bleaches the color from the agate much like anodize off of aluminum. I used 25% speed at 100% power @ 500 DPI. The agate was purchased locally for $4.00 per slice. The hole was put in by sand blasting.
I’ve uploaded a photo of the completed piece alone with a close-up of the photo which you can see the results of the cutline filter.