Trying to adj. photo image for burning onto tiles using the Norton white tile method.
I have seen several videos and they are all using lightburn, however for the life of me I can not figure out how they are getting such GREAT results when I am struggling with the image. No matter what i do and how I attempt to adj. the image it looks nothing like what i am seeing.
Do I need a very high quality photo image?
Do I need to have a certain image format?
These are all questions that videos i watch do not answer or mention.
I will bring in an image that has been modified using the website image-r but results nothing like youtube video shows.
I am adjusting image in lightburn using “Adjust image” where it gives a before and after view, yet when I am satisfied with the image look then close that window and look at the “Preview” window the image is like not even 5% close to what I am seeing in the “Adjust image” window.
Any of the “image mode” I select other than “halftone” give me terrible results, I can make many adj. to image in halftone to get a image that is sort of decent but no where near what many you tube videos show.
Am I doing something wrong?
ARe you saying the results that don’t look as you expect are in the preview or the actual engraving into the tile…I was not sure…I never see the preview nail the tile result spot on…usually too dark in some areas and I have to fiddle once or twice to get it.
Some guys preprocess the image in their photo software like photoshop and dither it there when they bitmap it. I don’t do that as I never had as good of results as letting LB dither it…but thats me. I have seen guys dither in PS and get great results though.
I will say the photo makes the difference. Many of the great tiles I see have very good contrast between light and dark and not a large amount of shades between the two. Hard to get good dithering if there is a lot of mid level shading between say the subject and background. The more contrast the NATURAL image has between light and dark areas the easier to get it right. So picking the right image or taking the correct photo, to me, is 90% of the battle. Adjusting then in LB or PS is then easy.
If it is a photo with a lot of shades from light to dark then the battle to adjust is much tougher.
thats what I find
You should post photo of the tile or the screenshot of LB…whichever or both.
Also…if you are saying the preview looks bad make sure you turn off transverse moves…turn on shade to power then zoom in on the photo. Dither always looks dark zoomed out…like a black silhoutte until you zoom in to the actual dithering.
Yes to the results on screen Preview before burn look dark or no detail at all, I have not tried to burn onto a tile as of yet. I do have some screen shots of what I am referring to. I will try zooming into photo as you suggested and see what happens. Although in halftone mode it seems to look not so bad but detail is still a little sketchy…
So here is pictures of what I see in half tone, only showing partial photo to conceal as it is of a friends children they wanted on tile… So this is what I see in halftone in “adjust image” and then again in Preview
And if I chose Jarvis, or Dither I see this, Picture looks alot cleaner and detailed but darker on the preview. And again I have not burnt to a tile yet as I was unsure of the darkness of the image:
You won’t like how halftone looks when engraved…at least I don’t….too many halftone dots.
The preview on the cut path screen doesn’t look like what it does engraved or at least not close. Dither will look dark until you zoom in….the preview at native resolution can’t distinguish all the individual dithering so it look black. When you zoom in you will see it more clearly.
However you have to burn some tiles to get an idea of what you see on the screen verses actuall burn. I find that roughly it is between what I see on adjust image screen and the preview slightly zoomed in. Remember that preview is mainly to show you the lasers path and burn or cut pattern I personally do not judge how the final burn will look as far as shading goes by the preview screen. I use preview to zoom in and look at the dithering in key areas since that is the exact pattern the laser will burn.
You will get it….just do some tiles…that’s the only way…it is a bit of experimentation at first but it will come.
I always dither unless it’s a straight vector then it’s threshold.
Well don’t ignore rather take it with a grain of salt in the preview as far as shading. Use the adjust image screen to get a rough idea of “the look” of the burn. Then make adjustments after some test tiles.
