Photoshop Laser Engraving Plugin
Jennifer Downey
You and I are going to go on a walkthrough of the process involved in editing a photo for engraving on your laser. I use Photoshop but much of the process can be adapted to other programs like Affinity Photo (which has many of the same tools as Photoshop), and Gimp.
To remedy this, I put together a series of Photoshop actions that automated the process of putting all of my tools into one place, made some pretty good guesses at the edits needed, and allowed all of the customization I wanted and needed.
The Black and White mixer is a very powerful tool! It will allow us to modify how the color values are translated into black and white. To modify how these colors are mixed, double click the layer thumbnail, which is the small square that is black and transparent.
The image on the left shows the red slider at 0, and the image on the right shows the red slider at 88. Increasing the slider value lightens the colors that have red in them. Decreasing the slider value darkens the colors that have red in them.
The levels adjustment tool will have 3 sliders. The slider on the left controls the brightness levels for the darker areas of the image, the middle slider controls the midtones, and the right slider controls the brightness in the highlights of the image. These will default to values of 0 (dark areas), 1.0 (midtones), and 255 (highlights).
This is another very powerful tool that can extract a lot of detail out of both the shadows and highlight region of your photos, which ultimately creates contrast, which tends to make your engrave more realistic and interesting.
These settings allowed me to pull the highlights down, creating a lot of texture and detail in the white areas of his coat. It also pushed the dark areas of his fur up, creating more texture that we will see in the engrave.
Resize your image to the desired engrave size. Here, I generally copy all of the edits into a brand new file which leaves my original source image completely editable. This is part of what my actions do.
Without getting into all of the fancy details about resolution, image size, Photoshop and 72 PPI - you can see this is a big, high resolution image. We want to scale it down and increase the pixels per inch to get to a final engraveable image.
Why do photographers hate this? All images are sharpened for printing, so we have a pretty good idea of what the sharpened photo should look like. Laser engraving requires sharpening the image beyond what you would sharpen it for Inkjet printing but less than the point where you say what the hell just happened?
Thank you Sir for sharing your work here, and developing a tool that many like me will find invaluable!
I can see the proceeds from this fueling future adventures for you and Rio in the "Have glowforge, will Travel" saga.
Our simple laser photo engraving plugin for Adobe Photoshop is designed to make photo prep easy and fast for beginner and professional laser engravers! Though initially developed for prepping and outputting files for the Glowforge laser, this Adobe plugin works exceptionally well with other brands of laser engravers such as Trotec, Epilog, Universal, Boss, Mira, and more.
This Photoshop action set is custom-designed for laser photo engraving to give you the optimal laser engraving edits for your images. The actions will prepare your photograph for engraving quickly and easily with completely non-destructive and customizable editing. Full of features - such as intelligent editing, smart sharpening, processing for the Glowforge, direct-import files with no resizing, , reset to the source image, dedicated portrait mode, a dedicated mode for images that need to be inverted (such as slate, acrylic, and glass), and much more.
My most popular tutorial of 2014 was my guide to creating a realistic money effect in Photoshop, which explained the steps to achieve an authentic engraved illustration style. The process is quite time consuming, so I figured it would be useful to...
This effect mimics the engraving on the US currency. I agree with your statement of not being a fan of many other effects. Curious how this will engrave with a laser. I have a feeling it will look good.
This guide will show you how to quickly and easily prepare your photos for laser engraving. We'll also give you tips on getting the best results from your engravings. But before we do that, let's quickly discuss laser engraving first.
Laser engraving is a technique that uses a laser beam to etch an image onto a surface. The laser beam vaporizes the material it comes into contact with, leaving a smooth, precise image. Laser engraving is often used to create name tags, awards, and other items requiring detailed lettering or images.
The high level of precision makes laser engraving ideal for delicate or intricate designs. In addition, laser engraving can be used on various materials, including metal, glass, wood, and plastic. As a result, this versatile technique can be used for many applications.
Photoshop is relatively easy to install and use once you get the hang of it. The first thing you need to do is download the program from Adobe's website. Once downloaded, double-click on the installer file and follow the prompts. After installation, you'll need to activate it with your Adobe ID. You can do this by opening the program and clicking on Help > Sign In. Enter your Adobe ID and password and click Sign In. Once you're signed in, you can start using Photoshop.
You can duplicate the image layer by pressing Command-J on a Mac or Ctrl-J on a PC. Alternatively, you can do this by right-clicking the image in the layers section and selecting Duplicate. A dialog box will appear where you can enter a new name for the duplicate file. You can also choose where to save the file and the format.
Once you've entered all the information, click OK, and Photoshop will create a copy of your image. A duplicate file is a lifesaver if something happens to the original image, such as accidental deletion or file corruption. It's also a good idea to keep multiple backups in different locations to be safe.
Go to the Image menu and select Adjustments. Next, choose Brightness/Contrast. Now you will see a dialog box appear on your screen. Adjust the brightness and contrast in the dialog box until you are happy with how your photo looks.
Once you have adjusted the brightness and contrast of your photo, it's time to crop it. Go to the Imagemenu again and select Crop. A new dialog box will appear on your screen. Use this dialog box to crop your photo so that only the portion you want to engrave remains. Alternatively, you can use the Crop icon found on the toolbar. If the tools are not appearing on your Photoshop, you can go to Windows and click Tools or simply reset Photoshop back to its default appearance.
Now that your photo is cropped, you need to resize it. Go to the Image menu and select Image Size. A dialog box will appear on your screen. In this dialog box, you can enter the new width and height that you want your photo to be.
If you would like to remove the background of your image, there are several methods you can use. If the image is sharper, you can simply go to Select and then choose Subject. Photoshop will be able to select your entire image. Then, in the layers section, click Add Layer Mask, and it will be able to remove your background. You can also use the Quick Selection Tool to select your image and use the mask option to remove the background.
There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is to use the Grayscale Tool. To do this, go to Image > Mode > Grayscale. You can also experiment with other methods, such as changing the layer mode to Grayscale or using the Channels mixer adjustment layer.
Sharpening the image increases the contrast between adjacent pixels by making light pixels lighter and dark pixels darker. As a result, the edges of objects appear to be better defined, and the overall image looks sharper. Although sharpening your image improves its appearance, it can also accentuate noise and other distractions in the image. So, it's important to be careful when doing this. (Check our guide on how to remove distractions in Photoshop)
After preparing your image in Photoshop, you can export it for laser engraving using the Export As function in the File section. This will allow you to save your file as a native JPG file, which you can import into your laser engraving software.
When exporting your file, you will also need to specify Resample option. We recommend using Bicubic Sharper for best results, as demonstrated below. You can also customize the quick export settings of Photoshop so you can easily export your images without having to go through the above process every time.
We have shown you how to quickly prepare your photos for laser engraving in Photoshop. By following these steps, you should be able to prepare your images correctly and make sure that your final product accurately represents your original concept.
Once everything is ready, you can import it into your laser engraving software and begin the engraving process. Laser engraving is a versatile and powerful tool for bringing your ideas to life. It is also an excellent way to personalize gifts and add a special touch to any project. Happy laser engraving!
The file "xxxxx.cdr" is an unknown file format and cannot be opened.
Installed illustrator to transition from Corel for my Trotec Laser Engraver. No longer have a working copy of Corel, the copy I bought off Ebay was turned off from Corel saying it was not legit. I no longer access to corel for saving or exporting files.
Need to run some parts for a client today, really need some help with this..
Thanks.