Our company recently purchased a Universal Superspeed 660. We have been using Corel for quite some time now for sublimation with no problems. We have been experimenting with the different settings for different types of materials. We pretty much have lasering on wood and brass down pretty well, but our company wants to begin to do photos and we can’t seem to produce any quality images. It seems that the art that we create or receive doesn’t quite make the transition from program to laser. We have also been trying to find classes that both teach advance techniques using Corel and laser at the same time. Are there any companies that teach Corel in conjunction with lasers?
There are the occasional classes from various companies but you’ll have to travel for most of them, unless by some sheer stroke of luck (which never happens to me) you’re in one of the cities already - usually Atlantic City, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. etc. Do a Google for “laser engraving classes Corel” and you’ll see some listings from various vendors of machines and places like graphicspro.org.
If you’re a beginner to the world of photo manipulation/editing and you’re also a beginner to the world of engraving, then your absolute best bet is to get a third-party application called PhotoGrav - it’s about $400. You run your photograph through it, tell it the material you want to etch it on, and it will create an optimized version of the image that you then import into Corel and etch. Otherwise, you’ll need to get up to speed with the techniques of inverting, optimizing curves and levels, and tweaking saturation to get the best results from a photograph, and even with knowing all that you’ll be etching the image on some scrap pieces first to view the possible results before committing them to the final “sellable” piece.
Plus, in any instance, you need to be sure that the image you’re given to work with is worth the effort to begin with… if all your clients have done is point you to a Web site where there’s a little two-inch 72 dpi portrait they want you to blow up into an 8″ x 10″, that’s not going to work under any circumstances. I always ask for an image that’s AT LEAST 300 dpi and at least four inches in size along any one dimension before even considering engraving a photo.
Mostly of my work is raster, I use photoshop. For vector I use macromedia freehand, but this is mostly because I knew it before getting the laser. Adobe has taken over macromedia, so if I was to learn a lean program, it would probably be Adobe Illustrator. Personally I hate illustrator, but corel is worse. The only thing good about Corel is it appears to be the application which they used in china to test the laserpro. I’ve had less driver issues with corel than any other program.
For working with pictures I recommend Photograv. It handles all of the computer manipulations VERY quickly. Well worth the money invested.
I was very new to lasers this past year. In November I purchased a Uneiversal X2 660, 100 Watts. I have just finally gotten my first photo to work very well in fact. But it wasn’t without a ton of trial and error. I decided not to use Photo grav, instead I rework the photos myself. Really there is nothing to it. Here’s a simple rule of thumb to begin with that someone from another forum taught me : DPI/PPI = Ouptut/Input X 100 for example: a 6″ pic to a 12″ pic is 12/6 X 100 = 200 PPI. It gives you the correct resolution that you need and good results.
I can help you with some of the other things on photo engraving too since I also have a Universal and understand that driver a little bit. I’m just giving you a simplified version of all the posts and such that I have read because most people believe you need to actually understand what goes into it, and you do, but if you are like me you learn from doing.
Here are a few tips and tricks:
1. Make sure error diffusion is turned on. Halftone gives you the “look” of a photograph with a series of larger and smaller dots. Diffuision is a variable dot pattern giving you a “realistic” photograph.
2. Alter your photos in like Corel Photo Paint first. a. Brighten your photo first if you desire b. Change your photo to black and white c. Invert the photo 3. Next don’t forget to use the formula above for your ppi settings in the driver. If you have the settings to high it will become very grainy. 4. When engraving marble a low power setting gives you the best results.
Since I don’t’ know what wattage laser you have I can’t really help you with the settings yet. But I’ve asked around on so many different places for help that I am definitely more than happy to pass the info on. Please never hesitate to ask for anything you need!