The Hobby Guy Workshop

Creating an image from a photo using the Image Workshop

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Laser Workshop GuildDiode Lasers Community

I have not had very good luck with photos on my lasers and I figured I would give it a try with the Image Workshop here on the Workshop

Project Progress

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Each Project Session preserves the maker’s tests, Prototype versions, changes, and lessons in the order they happened.

Session 3

Editing an image and creating a useable file

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I started with the image of me with the moose engraving from another project. I went into Image Workshop above and loaded my picture. Since I'm doing this as a learning experience, I just focused on my mug. Since I was doing it on piece of scrap MDF I selected Natural Wood as my material starting point. I then went in to fine tune the image. This was a little tricky because what is best is highly subjective, and I don't know what details will engrave better. By holding control and using the wheel on my mouse I was able to easily zoom in to see what effect each setting does to the fine detail of the image. I selected Stucki as the dithering mode as it was highly recommended from other people. I played with the threshold but ultimately set it back to what it was and saved the image as a png file. Imported the image into Lightburn and it looks pretty good. I have the layer set to pass through mode since I already processed the image in Image Workshop. The next step will be engraving a test print.

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Session 4

Experimenting with settings and wood choice.

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My settings are still off, as I try to figure out what I'm doing here. I adjusted the brightness and contrast of my original image within Image Workshop. I'm sure the problems I am having is my error. I retried the engraving with the new settings. They were better than the muddy original engraving, but still not what I wanted. I tried using a piece of light colored scrap 3mm (1/8in) plywood. I forgot to adjust my power settings so, I think I had too much power going, but the result was better.

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Session 5

Figuring Settings

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I'm still working on getting the fine tuning figured out in Image Workshop. The problems with it are me issues, not the software. I've had similar problems finding the right adjustments to an image for laser engraving. Here I have my latest fine tuning adjustments and will be sharing the engraving when it's done. I am figuring the black point and white point settings.

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Session 6

Image Workshop vs My Laser Power Settings

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I have been finding that as much as getting the image right in the Image Workshop, my power settings and choice of wood makes just as much difference. The two images here are the same Image Workshop image, with similar power settings, but on two different woods. The one on the left was done on basswood (I believe) and the one on the right was pine (I believe). The one on the left had a power level of 25% and the one on the right was 35%. Both were done at 26,000mm/min. I was surprised at how much darker the one was with less power. As I said, the wood makes a difference, What I'm finding is that even doing material tests can be problematic. On one of my material tests, it was burned through at the left and right edges. The material test settings were constant power with no overscan. I tried it with constant power off and the material test only had the headers, etc. The squares did not appear at all. So I set it back to constant power and set a 2.5% overscan (left material test). I got the squares but they were less dark than my original test. So I re-ran it again with 0% overscan and came out with much darker squares (right material test). I believe it should be constant power with no overscan for the material test, but maybe someone else knows better.

1 Project Entry in this Session.

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3 Crew members
Diane HollandDiane HollandEric AhrensEric AhrensManCastleKingManCastleKing