First "Granite?" Photo

[Mark Ross]

So we use our Epilog 36EXT strictly for cutting at work and we tie it up most days for at least the full first shift. However, due to the economy, they would like to be able to "offer" other items to our customers (we are not retail, strictly commercial, not in the awards market either).

So I went to Lowes and bought "granite" tiles. Now these tiles are called "natural stone" and since they came from China...let's see China...lead paint in kids toys, Melamine in baby formula, Radioactive stinky drywall....I wouldn't be surprised if this WASN'T Granite or anything close.

I will attach the pictures in a seperate post of the tile.

I would like to thank everyone here for posting, as it makes is so much easier to have successful attempts straight out of the gate. The resolution on the tile is only 150dpi, when I tried to reproduce the same tile at 300 DPI, the picture washed out really badly on the tile.

Does anyone here buy 12X12 tiles from places like Lowe's, Home Depot, or Menards? I am just wondering if granite should say granite on the box...

Also if anyone can offer a link to a company that sells laserable stone that also custom cuts and shapes various sizes please let me know. Thanks!

[Mark Ross]

These are the shots from the box of "granite" tiles we bought. I am thinking this is not granite...might be okay for doing logos and stuff on, but not pictures.

[matt heinzel]

I might be crazy, but what is wrong with the photo? From your image it looks pretty good.

[Dee Gallo]

You're not crazy, Matt!

Mark - That looks fine, in fact excellent for your first one, in fact many people haven't gotten such good results YET after many tries.

I think your photo prep could use some work, to make the subject stand out better from the background, or you could more picky about what photos you start with. But that's a really good job!

cheers, dee

[Dan Hintz]

That's granite...

[Mark Ross]

Thanks for the feedback, I used the "gold" method I found in one of the forums. Thanks for letting me know that is granite, I wasn't sure. I guess it would look a little better on pure black granite.

I bought that from Lowe's, the Menard's in our area doesn't sell granite but have plenty of various colored marbles. Do some color marbles work better than others? I bought a couple of pieces to play around with (only a couple of bucks a tile!).

The photo of the tile looks better than the original (then again, I'm an engineer and a bit (haha, more like BIT) of a perfectionist. I am just wondering if most people engrave granite at 300 dpi or if that resolution is too high (I might have the power set too high, I haven't looked at the piece under a microscope yet).

We have various software here and Corel Photopaint has some features where they show you things as a graph, like contrast enhancement, and I am thinking that maybe those graphs have a sweet spot and if you adjust various settings and always get your graphs to look about the same, it might help because working in greyscale everything is a bit subjective. If I do find out more along those lines I will be sure to post it.

[Tom Bull]

Go to coreldrawpro.com and find the June 2007 and July 2007 archives for a full lesson on engraving granite and marble.

[Dee Gallo]

(I might have the power set too high, I haven't looked at the piece under a microscope yet).

You inspect your work with a microscope? You are WAY more picky than the average person!

I've gotten absolute black granite from Home Depot - looks just like yours.

cheers, dee

[Jack Harper]

You inspect your work with a microscope? You are WAY more picky than the average person!

I've gotten absolute black granite from Home Depot - looks just like yours.

cheers, dee

I inspect our engraving under a digital microscope all the time. This really takes the subjective guess work out of the process and lets you determine the precise resolution very quickly. I can even take pictures with the microscope and save for future comparisons.

[Glinda Fabok]

Mark, absolute black is the name of the granite you need to look for otherwise a lot of colored flecks in them. also I make it a habit to actually open the box and look at them because some are in no way absolute black. A great place to shop for different media to use is Lasersketch.com They have great stuff...Loved the picture, by the way..

[Mark Ross]

I was able to figure out our 45W epilog ain't gonna be replacing sandblaster technology anytime soon...

I gotta go get another box of tiles and figure out if I try to do 300DPI if I need to reduce power. It may be that the "finish" on that granite isn't the greatest and the laser? might be blowing chunks of it off?

Either way, I think I figured out how to tile the kids room and give them

1. Hopscotch
2. Shuffle Board
3. REALLY big checkers and chess...

Now I just have to figure out the proper "untruths" for the bossman so when he walks by the laser and asks me what is this, I will have a canned answer for him!

[Tim Bateson]

Mark, absolute black is the name of the granite you need to look for otherwise a lot of colored flecks in them. also I make it a habit to actually open the box and look at them because some are in no way absolute black. A great place to shop for different media to use is Lasersketch.com They have great stuff...Loved the picture, by the way..

I don't believe the "marble" they sell is the real stuff. Never tried their granite.

[Miguel Pinho]

Hello everybody...

I work for a long time on laser engraving in stone. From my experience the best granite to engrave is called Indian Black, and Negro absoluto (absolute black). In Portugal i buy this granites for 55€ to 70€ m2, slabs of 2mm thickness.
By the way...that stone you engrave is also very good for laser, they come from china..here we pay 38€ m2, in tiles of 040 x 40 x 1,5 cm.
Your engraving is very good for a first time, but you have to try it without less brightness.
Use photograv, is much more better than Photoshop to engrave.
Dont forget to use the sharpen tool and, unsharpen mask tools in corelpaint after you change the picture to 8bit greyscale.

Regards from Portugal

[Dan Hintz]

Thanks for letting me know that is granite, I wasn't sure. I guess it would look a little better on pure black granite.

Mark,

If you're not completely satisfied with the look, try absolute black marble. It holds more detail as you're bleaching the marble (use in 3D mode with an 8-bit grayscale image) rather than blasting out chunks of the granite with a two-tone image.

[Belinda Barfield]

Mark,

If you're not completely satisfied with the look, try absolute black marble. It holds more detail as you're bleaching the marble (use in 3D mode with an 8-bit grayscale image) rather than blasting out chunks of the granite with a two-tone image.

I would like to, respectfully, disagree with you on a point here Dan. In both cases, marble or granite, all you are doing is removing the surface polish. You can't "bleach" marble, unless you are removing the dye that is frequently used to deepen the color.

Absolute Black granite is actually basalt. Some of the "crystals" in the stone are larger than others and fracture when lasered. Larger the crystal, larger the pit created, which accounts for the uneven engraving often seen with granite.