I was wondering if you guys could help me cut locket pictures. I got a locket for the wife’s birthday and want to cut pictures of my kids accurately.
Has anyone done this?
I was thinking of taking an slightly bigger sheet of birch ply and putting registration points on it, while also cutting a cross-hairs origin for the photo. Then I could freely move around an 18x18mm heart in LB to surround each kids face. Once that’s set i could use the “print and cut” function in LB.
Thoughts? Or is there an easier way other than sitting with a pair of surgical scissors in the corner for an hour…
First create a shape in LB that matches precisely the shape of the locket. If this is a circle or something it should be fairly easy. If this is irregularly shaped then I suggest you scan the locket in a scanner. Then use Trace image to capture the shape. If you don’t have access to a scanner then you may be able to get a reliable shape using the camera on your laser. Run some experimental cuts to make sure it’s cutting reliably. Ideally you’d do some final tests on photo paper so that you know you’ve got it nailed down. Once you have the shape set this aside.
Before you print the photos edit the image and put the alignment registration marks directly into the image. Not sure if you plan to gang print these or print them individually but the technique would work either way. Just you’ll have a little more work to do if it’s many prints.
Once prints are in hand, use the camera to align the registration marks for a print and cut operation.
Bring the locket shape into workspace and align to ideal position on the overlay.
Run your cut.
Profit.
Some notes:
Prints tend to have a curl to them so you may want to sort out some way of getting them to lay flat
Photo paper has all sorts of weird chemicals in them. There may be a safety concern here but I’m not certain. Be careful with it.
I assume you’re doing this in small quantities. If you were doing this in high volume you’d probably want to setup a jig and a streamlined workflow for this.
That’s just going to be about how precise you want it. I had assumed you had some specific alignment requirements. If you’re comfortable with eye-balling it then that approach is totally fine and a lot simpler.
One thing to watch out for is the scaling of the photos. You may want to test fit the locket shape onto the photos before they’re printed to size. Not sure how familiar you are with photo printing but want to make sure they’re printing to the scale that you expect. Most labs will slightly enlarge your photo to make sure there’s no visible edge to the photo. This can throw off your plans. Ideally they’d tell you how much they enlarge so you can accommodate for it. If not, just scale slightly smaller than expected (98% of intended size).
There are probably more precise methods, but don’t complicate something.
You are only going to have to position the laser to cut one circle (outline for the locket).
Move the laser near there and ‘rubber band’ frame the object. A single cut like this is pretty easy to line up with an LED compared to a co2.
The best and most simple would be the load (update overlay) it into the background and just put the outlines over the areas you wish to cut out. Need absolute coordinates, but it should work much better if your camera is aligned.
You will need to hold the photo down.
The camera is the most simple. That is assuming that you have a camera that works with lightburn.
