A friend of mine, DC, asked me if I could share some pictures of what I do for his daughter.
I’d be happy to.
Here's a typical setup:
The work starts in photoshop like normal (This is GIMP. It’s free. I’m cheap.)
It’ll go to imag-r.com to do the dither. GIMP can do a dither, but it imag-r looks better.
See how it’s all dots on the screen now?
Anyways, this is a small swatch, a point of interest that has been moved into the software that controls the laser. In this case we are doing a Medusa mirror so we are looking at a snake head that has both lights in the head and darks in the neck…. full spectrum of “color” if you will.
If we can make out the curvature of the head and still be able to see the neck in our test, we’re good to go. Easy peasy right?
So we’ll run a few copies of the swatch… making educated guesses to change the settings into focus with each one.
writing each change and observations as we go….
This is the machine running the project by the way. It was custom built specifically for this particular Medusa mirror job. The rails are 1200mm, 47.2 inches.
Back to finding our settings:
I stow this light thing on the ceiling when not in use. I think it’s an artist’s tracing light. I don’t know. My Aunt Karen got it for me so shop ID = “Karen”. I use it all the time.
Here is our target:
I think number two from the right is going to be our best bet. The first one from the right is over-burnt and you can’t really tell the details of the neck in any of the others. The second one seems just right. You can barely tell the head and you can see the neck. A good compromise.
So…..
It’s just a matter of checking back to our notes and here’s our settings. Good to go!
Now it’s just a matter of framing it. I’m just tracing the outline of the project right now and lining up the mirror to where the machine thinks the mirror is. I usually trace the very exterior of the piece so that the laser is half on / half off the edge. I find there’s less margin for error that way.
AND BURN.
A COUPLE OF HOURS INTO THE BURN:
Progress looks good.
I believe I’m seeing the aluminum foil bed through the glass so that’s a good sign!
This one’s “quality over quantity” so check back in a few days. I’ll be sure to update.
Thanks for reading.