What are you trying to achieve by doing this? Trying to understand what value there is in using grayscale if you’re trying to do this.
I’m not really following what you mean by this. I see traversal lines between shapes and in whitespace areas:
Do you mean to say the laser stays on at a single position or does the laser head move and is just at too high a power?
Ok, first off, correction on my previous message. The sakuras are not working. While they are creating the general shapes, the output is full max (hard to explain, just think craters). Now, back to what your picture shows. The image you show has red on the borders of the image and dont “fill” the images. The sakura you show in the preview is gray, not pink (when red traversal lines cross it). The branch is gray/black , not pink. The scales are gray/black, not pink. If you look at the original first images that I sent at start of forum, you will see the Stucki version shows this “pink” shading across the images. This is absolutely necessary for the image to come out correctly on the material. These are the image traversal lines needed which are not in your sample pic. Yours only shows red around the borders which shows there is a problem. This is grayscale not working.
I think you may not be fundamentally understanding how grayscale works in this case. You see traversal moves within dots of Stucki because that’s a dithered model. All on or all off so shading is approximated through gaps in burns. This is why you would see traversal moves in between those dots.
Grayscale will always be on where a color is present, just at varying power which is why you see different shades of gray as long as “Shade according to power” is on. And also no traversal moves.
Again, is there a reason you’re trying to use grayscale? And is there a reason you were trying to use a single value for both min and max? I suspect there’s something fundamental you’re attempting that I’m not able to understand.
To prove, I am showing the project when it was successful a few days ago. I struggled to get the image to finally “go pink”, and after some adjusting of the settings and even creating a cut border, it finally showed up properly in the preview window. Once this was achieved, the image engraved properly on the wood. Only after it went pink in the preview did it work on the engrave.
I use a 50,20,20 so as to not cut too deeply into the wood. I use a low and slow method for some projects because I want the quality to be better. If I use a 50,30,10 for the scales, the wood burns too much. Likewise, if I use a higher speed, the quality suffers. The point is to be able to “feel” the scales, not just see them… they actually have a scale like texture.
This looks like it was actually done with a dithered mode. You can see discrete dots where shading is approximated.
I don’t think this is doing what you think it’s doing.
This basically says, use a single power for the entirety of the image irrespective of grayscale level. So no matter what the picture you would just get the same burn throughout. I think this is demonstrated in what you’re seeing.
This does sound like something for grayscale as you should be able to get variable depth. Note that you won’t necessarily get variable shading on most CO2 setups.
Read through this topic on how grayscale functions. Note that this was under the context of diode lasers where variable shading can genuinely be achieved but the principle for how power is determined is the same.
Please show / share the art you used to create the “scales” image above. What did you start with? 
I am showing images of the burns I just made using 50,20,10 (even LOWER than what I normally use, and respective of what you would suggest for grayscale), and I get either pure burn, or the image engrave with a heavier burn. How is it good one day and bad the next?
Note that I made no specific recommendations for settings.
I suspect you’re not comparing apples to apples in the tests.
In this particular example it seems to me you’re just going way too slow for the power of your laser.
Did you read through the previous Topic? I have a couple of posts there that are very instructive in understanding the impact of grayscale values and the min-max settings.
Berainlb,
When I say “respective” I mean that you are saying the grayscale should have varying min/max powers. I changed the values to “respect” that. I just lowered the dpi (it was strangely 491), and the gamma from 1.0 (once again, not my intended value) to .450 where it should be, which lightened the image which should lower the power output and still got craters.
Ok.
In any case you can see that there is variable power based on the texture that’s visible.
So a few things possibly going on:
You can use this gradient for testing.
right!, So 50, 30, 10 ! Im not saying that to mock you, Im saying these values because they align with what you just suggested. 10 is my min power (8 is the absolute lowest, but my laser wont spit out anything there) 30 is my max, because if I go any higher, it will burn through the 1/8" balsa wood Im using, and 50 is the most appropriate speed to allow these laser power values time enough to settle in the material. I wasnt playing when I said I spent time making these values. Once I saw them work perfectly on some of my other projects, I use it all the time for similar materials. 50,30, 10 for 1/8" balsa/birch wood. Period! Now we’re kinda getting off track talking laser values when the real reason I posted, is because NOTHING is engraving now for grayscale.
How do you mean? Is this a new condition? I thought the original condition was that you were saying you get overburning.
no. My post is about grayscale not working at all. All other modes work, grayscale does not.
Can you explain what exactly is happening? At what point does it fail?
I was reacting to this which made me think you were not getting variation in the burn which is what I was attempting to explain about min and max:
I used these settings on the scales image you supplied in ‘sakura and branch.lbrn2’
Gamma on image 0.5
Speed 200
Max Power 20
Min Power 9 (my 80W tube starts to fire at 8.8%)
DPI 300
The preview looks like this:
And output on ply:
If you are looking for results that you previously got that corresponded with the presence of traversal lines across the image in the preview, then either A) you were using a different ‘Image Mode’ (and just not realising it), or B) you were using grayscale and had ‘Bi-directional scanning’ turned off, which would also leave traversal lines across the engraving in the preview.
If we assume B), then you will still need to revisit your settings. Try adjusting them to be similar to what I have used here as a starting point, and let us know how you get on.
Alright, restart. Last week I created a project using the scales. I posted that actual project minus showing the logo, showing the scales on wood. Initially, the project’s dragon scales did not engrave anything, meaning it engraved out a pure rectangle that was flat and without any image. I looked at the preview and saw the scales all in black and white with the red outline on the border and thought that is what it’s supposed to look like, but then I put a “cut” border around the dragon scales, checked the preview and the preview image changed to pure red dragon scales. When I went to engrave that, it worked. The wood project I showed is the result of those “red/pink scales” in the preview. Which is why I say the grayscale image preview needs to be red/pink, otherwise you get a max burn or just a flat burn with no picture. It’s odd, and I cant explain why it’s this way, but that’s what worked. Ive done several other grayscales with red/pinks, and all worked. Now, I cant get the grayscale for any image to show up red/pink, and consequently, they all fail to engrave. This is why I said, why does it work one day, and not the next? Does LB need a new update?
sry for late reply, this forum locks more responses if you are new member. had to wait 20 hours.
This is part of the automated security and anti-spam measures. I have bumped your profile, so this should no longer be limited in this way.
