How to Laser Engrave a Photo on Wood?
Posted by Joey Weng on
Before you laser engrave a photo on wood, you have to know what's the Best Wood for Laser Engraving Photo? Ideally, your material should be flat. If it’s warped, then you need to work out a way to make it flat.
Different types of wood can have very different characteristics when it comes to laser engraving. Even the same type can vary from section to section, sheet to sheet, etc. So, what worked on this bit may be a little off on the next bit.
Basically, the best wood for photos depends on three factors: resin content, grain pattern, and color and tone.
Resin content affects how dark the wood burns when it is engraved with a laser. Woods with high resin content burn darker, while woods with low resin content burn lighter. So for more contrast, choose high-resin woods.
Grain patterns in the wood will have different burn characteristics. For example, if you’re using unprocessed slices (literally a slice of a tree), rings of different colors will show up in the burn and the core will have an exploded look.
Color and tone affect how much contrast and detail the engraved photo has on the wood surface. Plywood that shifts in color will also show color shifts in the engraved photo. Woods with light colors can create a clear contrast between the engraved and unengraved areas of your photo.
Knowing what kinds of wood are good for photo laser engraving, you can start prepare your wood for engraving.
A. Sanding
Remember that flattened part I mentioned above? Using some 400-600 grit sandpaper will help smooth out the surface of the material so that you can get a more even burn. If you are using wood chips, you better sand them, because they may not have been sanded at all.
B. Pre-treatment
There are a few tricks you can do to get the engraving to be extra black from the get-go instead of the usual brown. These also allow for high speed and lower power burns without loss of detail.
Baking soda and borax are two of the most well-known materials for laser engraving.
Choose one of the materials and mix it with hot water(Many people have their own opinions on this ratio, but I personally use 1:10, borax:hot water). The hot water will help dissolve the powder. Once dissolved, brush/spray the material with the solution to give the wood a thin coating.
Be careful not to use too much, as moisture can cause warping of the wood. Then let the material sit so it can dry completely. When you carve it afterwards, it should be a darker color compared to the same burn on untreated wood.
In addition to the above two materials, there is also a "Kenny Hack" method on YouTube. But I haven't tried it. If you are interested, you can search and learn it yourself.
After finishing the preparation of your wood, you can start prepare your photo. I think most of the users want to learn that.
Then prepare the a clearer and sharper photo(No compressed version!)
It goes without saying that the sharper the photo, the better the result. But be aware that just because a photo “looks good” on the screen, it doesn’t mean it’s good quality.
Often photos are compressed to make their file size smaller and easier to transfer over the internet. While it may look good, it actually lacks actual detail, which is no good for engraving. Having said that, for blurry photos, tiny photos, photos of photos are going to be difficult to work with. There is only so much that can be done with those, and they still won’t look great sometimes.
2.Secondly, manipulate it with the Imag-R. LaserGBRL and Lightburn come with various tools and algorithms like grayscale, Stucki, Dither, Jarvis for your photo engraving. But now I want to recommend a free photo processing website that some of you may be familiar with, which is Imag-R, a free online multi-functional tool to get your images ready for laser engraving.
Besides being free (unless you want to get rid of the ads or get the offline version), it has a load of nifty tools that aren’t available elsewhere, and it’s all in one place. Wanna remove the background in a photo or make a puzzle? Yeah, they have those tools there too. Oh, and, you can do it all through your phone, tablet, or PC.
With Imag-R, it's easy to set the image's size, DPI, material, etc., and you get a good preview of what it should look like.
I usually select grayscale for my photo engraving. Because it’s extremely good for me to do engraving on wood. After cropping your picture, you can select Kasia grayscale on material, click Ok, and you will get a preview of what the image will look like.
Normally, you can choose to download the image after this step. But I will prefer to do some adjustments. And I usually do some gamma adjustments. I want it brighter,so I increase 1 to 1.6. If you want it darker, you can choose low down to 0.8
It can be seen that compared with the original image, the image is clearer, and light and dark contrast are better. Of course, you can use some functions on the left to fine-tune parameters such as light and shade, contrast, etc.
After downloading, open the image through lightburn, set the dpi to 318dpi, select grayscale as the image mode, and set the parameters to the parameters you have tested. Different module need different settings!
Here are my settings :
Max 4 & E80
Laser Engraved Photo Finished
One of the nice things about engraving on wood is that you have options to change the result afterwards. Not dark enough? Give it another pass or low down your speed. Too dark? Give it a light sanding with 400 grit or high sandpaper to take off the top layer.
For laser engraving, the most important thing is clear pictures and parameter settings that suit your machine. Practice makes perfect!