Problem with file Illustrator/Photograv

[Joel Scism]

First let me introduce myself. I have been lurking and reading everything I can on her for about 9 months. This forum is one of the best ones that I have visited.

I tried searching and didn't find anything that could answer my question. I have recently been playing with Photograv and a universal LASER. I have the file set in Photograv and save it as a BMP. Then I open it in Illustrator CS3 and try to send it to my LASER and nothing happens. It says that the file is there with the settings but the job starts and ends without the head moving? Now if I take the file and send it through Corel it works fine?

I can send other files through Illustrator but just not Photograv ones. Does anyone know why?

I teach High School Technology and I would rather the students that know Illustrator use photograv next year than for me to teach them all another program(Corel).

Thank you for your time,

Joel

[Bill Cunningham]

There are a few here that use Illustrator, but corel is the industry standard for lasers.. The photograv .bmp file should be a binary black and white (unlike a 8 bit greyscale).. I'm sure Illustrator should be able to print one to any other printer, I would think there is some kind of driver conflict.. Try converting the .bmp to a .tif and see what happens.. Just make sure it remains a binary (monochrome image).. Maybe Illustrator just don't like .bmp's I've never used illustrator, but I'm sure it would handle a .bmp, it just might not be talking to the laser

[Trevor Watson]

Not sure about the driver from Illustrator to the Laser but with my Xenetech when you print from Corel or Adobe you bring up a printer window.. Make sure Vector and Raster is enabled not just Vector .. I have this problem sending stuff through sometimes will get a blank job on the window of the touch screen on the laser press go and the job will start and finish without doing anything ..

Trev

[Bill Cunningham]

Sorry for the long delay Trevor.. I only get on here once, maybe twice a week.. If your using a USB connection, it could be the source of your problem, There are a few folks using illustrator.. But if your students are going to be using a laser, why fight it.. I doubt if the learning curve for Corel is any more difficult than it would be for Illustrator.. Besides, most kids learn this stuff way faster than we do, and a far higher percentage probably have a PC at home than a Mac

[Joel Scism]

I haven't been into school since we left for the summer I plan on going in next week to give the laser a go to see if I can get Illustrator to print with a photograv image. I tried changing the settings to raster/vector and playing with a bunch of settings. I didn't try changing the type of file yet.

We are using PCs... no MACs Illustrator works all of the time but for some reason the students get corel to crash about 60% of the time. That said I changed to Illustrator and it works great... well except for the photograv hiccup.

I'll post my findings...

Thanks again,

Joel

[Bill Cunningham]

If you have processed the photo in photograv, then you can send it to the laser using any program (you don't need Corel) . Even MS paint.. As long as it remains a monochrome image..

[Joel Scism]

OK so I am at school now and I tried to get Illustrator to print the Photograv pictures. No luck with a BMP or a PNG. when saving the picture as a tiff it looks like I lost what Photograv did.

Any other ideas guys? Anyone out there use Photograv/Illustrator?

Thanks,

Joel

[Doug Griffith]

It sounds like something to do with Photograv. A tiff should import into Illustrator fine. Try opening the Photograv bmp in Photoshop, saving as a tiff, then importing the tiff into Illustrator. This will let you know who the culprit is.

[Bill Cunningham]

Make sure the .tif your saving to is a 2 bit file, and not a 8 bit gray scale. On screen, it 'will' look bad, because your screen was not designed to display 2 bit files.. But when engraving, it should look fine..