Finally something worth a couple bucks!

[fred sanchez]

so tim do u just print stright from corel onto your laser?

[Tim Bateson]

Yes. However, I will use Photoshop and/or Corel to get a photo or graphics ready for lasering.

[Bill Cunningham]

No - Using Photograv for glass/tile is waste of time. The fine details that Photograv provides is lost on glass & tile.

I use photograv for glass all the time, and get great results.. You just have to remember, that glass is not a high res medium. I usually re-sample the photo to 150 ppi, then run it through photograv using the glass setting then running it on the laser @300 dpi.. For ordinary tiles, I use the cherry setting @ 300 dpi..

[jeremy haneca]

can u please elaborate on wasting my time with photograve on tile and glass? i dont like wasting my time... as i have alot to learn!

[Darren Null]

Glass looks awful if you don't drop the resolution to around 150DPI. But both work with photograv.

Glass you can laser with relatively low power and it looks OK if you're burning at the right resolution. If you're expecting 300DPI photo quality on glass, then you're wasting your time.

Tile, I nuke hard at 300dpi, then normally colourfill (unless it's black/dark colour in which you can get away with no post-processing).

[Wesley Perreira]

What I get from this is that there are obviously different ways to get to the creation of a project and everyone should listen, learn, and appreciate this sort of dialogue made possible here on the creek.

[Darren Null]

Couldn't agree more. Some methods work better for some people than others so it's good to have another way of doing things to hand.

For cleaning the paint off, by the way, I tried it with denatured (cleaning/96%) alcohol and it came off MUCH easier than with WD40 (the previous method I used). Just a few blobs of alcohol on the cloth saves much knuckle-breaking.

Rather than a soft cloth, I use felt stretched over a hand-sized wooden block. Felt is soft enough to not damage the surface of marble, yet abrasive enough to get at the paint. Also, it doesn't drop bits in your work.

[Tim Bateson]

Jereny,
It's no secret here that I'm not a big fan of PhotoGrav. I do use it - occasionally, but for most of my work including tile, Photoshop and/or Corel adjustments turn out excellent results. I am very picky too - I'll occasionally give my work to the customer at cost or free if I'm not 100% satisfied with the results. My customers have always been happy with the results and most are repeat customers.
PhotoGrav 3.0 is light years ahead of the previous version - the difference being like using Assembly Language to hand program every thing you need to do on your computer, then using WINDOWS 98. Version 3.0 is still overpriced for what you get from it, but as you'll see here I'm in the minority on that point.
There is an improvement with PhotoGrav, but a $400 improvement depends how often you really need that detail. I have found work on glass/mirror/tile to show no improvement in the final product using PhotoGrav. However, I do agree with others here that there are many ways to produce a similar result; I'm just expressing my experience. If you have the extra cash it's another tool to utilize on the rare occation you need it.

You can search this forum - someone had done a project with & without PhotoGrav.

[jeremy haneca]

me being new at this, ive found photograv to be of extreme help for photos on granite and glass. it does get a pixely look to it tho on wood that i cant seem to get away from yet... when i first got my machine i came up with a rather nice photo on wood without photograv but the results took me a long time to tune my laser in to the right settings. i dont want to haveto go through that every time... it wasnt pixely tho. nice and clean. is there a way to get away from those low quality images in photograve? im just opening up the b&w "engraved" image in corel and printing it.

[jeremy haneca]

darren,
everything i have done on glass soo far has been scanned at, and lasered at 300dpi/300ppi...... looks great! im confused..

[Darren Null]

You shouldn't get a pixillated look on wood. Try making sure your printer driver is set to full manual...otherwise you may be adding some extra dithering on top of your image which will degrade the final result.

everything i have done on glass soo far has been scanned at, and lasered at 300dpi/300ppi...... looks great! im confused..

Me too. I've never got good results at 300dpi, as the dots overlap which wrecks the image. Either you're using a super-grade glass or something else is happening. If you're using photograv, it might be dropping the resolution for you automatically on the glass setting.

[jeremy haneca]

as painful as it is to ask this, im going to anyway... lol

how do i make sure my printer driver is in full manual?

ok im looking at a pic on wood right now... its not resolution.. its just little tiny holes. giving a dotted image. not nice at all. i converted it to 125 dpi, set everything to 125 dpi in photograv, and printed it at 125 dpi/ppi at suggested photograv settings. other materials work out nicely but wood gives me this nasty image.

[Darren Null]

Bugger. I knew you were going to ask that. Your printer driver is probably different to mine, so I'll be mostly guessing...

1) Get a file in Coreldraw. If you have used Photograv DON'T DO ANYTHING but position it with Corel.

2) CTRL-P to print

3) On the right-hand side of the grey box, there's a 'Properties' button. Press it.

4) You're now in your printer settings, and here's the bit where I start making things up. On mine, there's several options, rubber stamp, 3D, Greyscale, Photo and Manual. If you select the Photo option (on mine) it adds dithering whether it needs it or not; thus turning a perfectly tuned photograved graphic into a dotty mess. Manual just prints what I tell it to and leaves it alone.
Yours may well be completely different, but if there's a photo preset then it might be adding unwanted effects as part of the processing. If you've already run your graphic through photoshop (or whatever) and photograv, any further processing is not going to help. Have a look for a "Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing" setting.

EDIT: The photo above is dotty because it's at 125dpi. Wood can hack 300dpi. I can't tell if there's any extra dithering from the photo

[jeremy haneca]

ok mine is set up differently but i get the idea i do have a dithering option under ther raster tab. but i cant turn it off. i can only select dithering or error diffusion. the only way i fin to get rid of that is to select maual colorfill otion getting rid of the raster tab all together

[Darren Null]

Error diffusion is just another kind of dithering.

So. Manual Colourfill. 300dpi for wood. You should be good to go.

Your glass quality might drop because you're no longer adding the extra dithering, but try it with the glass setting in photograv...might work. I use a 150dpi image for glass, a 300dpi image for everything else and photograv's cherry setting for everything. Works for me, but your mileage may vary.