Laser engraving a photo on plywood
Before Christmas it was needed to keep a bit of a low profile on publishing all the work done. There are still plenty of crafts in the queue.
The idea was simple. The photo was pretty obvious for the purpose as it is the best describing photo of the person for a long time. Also the material was a no-brainer with the professional history of the recipient.
Contents
- 1 laser cutter (able to engrave bitmap)
- 1 suitable sized Finnish plywood sheet
- a bitmap photo
Take the photo and open it up with our preferred image manipulation tool chain, be it Photoshop, Gimp, Imagemagick. Convert it to grey scale just to see how it looks. Revert back to working on the colored model and using available adjustment tools try to build up as much contrast as possible and into the right colors and places. Again, see the grey scale version to see how you managed. If needed adjust the image still in gray scale to make sure black is black and white is white to utilize the full potential of the laser engraver. Check suitable engraving parameters. Recommended power 100% and speed somewhere between 50-80%. It is possible to rerun the job so it might be better to start with faster speeds and then rerun if needed. For topping you may use oil, varnish, or just leave it as it is. Depending on design it might benefit on weathering before coating. And remember to add frames.
In the photo the result is approximately the size of A4.
