10 quick tips for laser engraving photos on wood

Hello, when you talked about speed and power, at which laser power did you refer? During video you said 100mm/s, but did you mean 100mm/min?

Doesnt air assist when engraving leave a bad kind of burnt mark. Its only supposed to be used whn cutting i heard?

For low resin woods, spray with a solution of borax. Dry before engraving. I can't give you the science behind it, but borax is also a good flux for melting gold pcb fingers. It turns to glass when melted, it darkens the black area when laser engraving.

Great video bro!

Hi. Have you got gamma backwards? You say if it's too dark, increase the gamma to lighten but sliding the gamma to the right makes it darker?

Having issues try to dial in details. Thanks!

Thank you very much for this video. it is very helpful

Thank you so much for this video. I saw "10 quick tips" and then I saw 6 minutes and change, and I thought that's too long for 10 quick tips. But I figured I'd watch the first few seconds. Then, rather than going off on some dumb introduction tangent, the first words out of your mouth were "Tip number one", and I was like OK, I will definitely watch this entire video. Thank you so much, all the info was fantastic. Would your recommendations on slow and low apply to a CO2 laser machine as well?

Thanks for a great tutorial

Thanks. You saved my day!

Looks like you use GIMP to edit the pictures, is this correct?

I agree with everything he says. My best results though were with a 2" lens, very slow at high DPI. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but dot overlap can be your friend. I spent many hours experimenting and had great results at 700 DPi@75 mm sec 9% power on a 60 watt

I have light burn, how do you get into the gamma settings? I've never seen that before!

Great video. As you pointed out, engraving wood is counterintuitive. I've discovered that closed-cell semi-hard and hardwoods give the best results.

Thank you so much. I have a photo of my two dogs I wanted to engrave. One is a mostly black dog and the is the typical JRT white with tan. You have explained a lot of information regarding the image I have struggled to find. I am off to master this photo engraving. Thank you from Australia.

Another Fantastic video Justin I am really enjoying my Xtool S1 thanks to your videos it's my second laser. My first was the Laser Pecker 4. I am a little confused on one settings on my S1the "Score Option" my LP 4 has no such setting and I have not found anything in the manual that tells me when you use score or should use it. I did a test on my logo on a piece of bass wood and it came out pretty cool but I have no actual idea when or why or on what I should use SCORE, as opposed to engrave. When I think score I think of something done to make a check pull out of a checkbook easy, but I am guessing it has a different purpose in the laser world. If you have a video on this or can do one would be awesome or just a response to this would be great. I was also wondering if you have any thoughts on slate and treating it. I made some charcuterie boards that came out great but wanted to treat them with something to make them food safe and not show oil marks from food but everything really takes away from the engraving. I am running a test on Tung Oil, Linseed oil, Danish oil, Mineral Oil, and Camellia oil, to see if any work better than the other and was wondering if you have done any? For coaster I don't really care that they be food safe and have found that Ultra Clear Matte from Rust-oleum works or Folke Art Varnish but both are not food safe so for cheese boards its not a good option and even some of the above like Tung oil could be bad for those with nut allergies if you have any recommendations for slate would love to hear them.

Great info. Most popular woods that don’t work well for engraving is mahogany, cherry, and walnut. Usually too dark and inconsistent wood colors and patterns.

Did you use a diode laser? xTool D1 Pro? What is the difference with CO2 laser? in terms of engraving photos?

Nice video with a lot of information! I’m curious, how would you create different layers to engrave at different speeds and power on a photograph similar to the one of the man that you showed at the end?

Hi, I’ve e usually used a programme and got great photoengraving but this current lazer ts20 pro. Uses Lightburn and my photo is striped. Horizontal lines. Can you recommend the settings please? I wondered if my scan settings as in the bi Directional setting too wide? I’m well disappointed 🥺I spent some time on Coral altering light etc.

Great tips! Really helped me take the photo pieces from good to great!

I DONT LIKE THIS 💣💥☝🦷

straight to the point. Thumbs up and thank you

For adding air assist I highly recommend California Air Tools compressors. I have been using their 8-gallon version its super quiet doesn't annoy me with loud machine noise and definitely keeps up with both my C02 laser and diodes at the same time.

Great advice. Thanks a lot for this.

Thank you for the straight to the point and detailed explanations! I love it. You'll be my go-to from now on! ✌️

Thank you for the video just what I was looking for so I subscribed to your channel. Hope you have more like this.

I've watched so many videos on how to laser engrave images and they all confused me or weren't helpful. This video is EXACTLY what I needed .. thank you so much! I'm off to run some test engravings now... Appreciate your videos!

Brilliant!
Many, many thanks.

I'm having problems with my xtool I'm trying to do a portrait the hair is super white but has a dark shirt on

Great video!!! Thank you so much. I learned a lot.

Could you please do one for engraving on acrylic?

Love this video! I have been stumped by a photo engraving project for ages. Plenty to try from this video. I do a lot of traditional woodworking and one surface prep I have been using lately is burnishing. On our insanely hard Aussie timbers, it comes up better that sanding and polishing. it might help for laser photoengraving. I am trying it now using the back of a polished stainless steel teaspoon to burnish and compress the surface grain of some baltic birch ply.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

This is awesome to find. I have a xTool D1 Pro 20w and just started doing some photo engraving work on Baltic Birch. The pictures come out SO different from photo to photo even with the same settings. Going to try and dial it in with some of your settings. Thank you!

About how long did it take to make both of the photos you engraved in the video?

Do u invert the color?

Incredibly surprising seeing that you engraved the exact image of the dog im working with lol ! I cant get this fucking image right yet because its too small and my speed was WAY too high so I'm HYPED you did the exact same one.

can you please introduce me some models of lasers that i can do engraving photos on wood with this quality?
I am looking for cheapest one that can engraving in good quality for photos.

This is very helpful! Thank you!

Thank xou! Greetings from germany

How many watts for these settings?

Your DPI should match the spot size of your laser. If your engraving using a 5w laser with a spot size of 0.06mm, you should be engraving at 423dpi. Going below that would result in gaps between the dots and lines on your engravings.

This might be a shot in the dark but I have a small project im trying to complete for a friend and i am failing horribly with the image and printout with the laser as it comes out wither to dark or to light or no detail at all. Im absolutely new to not only the creative software for xtool but i do have lightburn and never really used any kind of photo editing software before. Ill get some tutorials under my belt and see what may come of this but any help beyond this video I would be grateful. Thank you.

New sub, just based on the comments. Diving in now to watch the video.

So what power level should you engrave at I have done several projects at 20 w and 27 w and the image looks horrible. I set the DPI at about 270 for speed I've tried 6,000 and 3,000 which takes about 2 and 1/2 hours to burn the image. This is all new to me and I'm just trying to learn so I can enjoy my costly investment😅

Thanks for the help but, check the sound quality on your video it keeps going out and can't hear what your saying. Great tips.

what's the watts in your laser machine?so I can reference to mine, I have a laser CO2 80W

0.000001 second in of the video.
Justin: TIP NUMBER 1!
A true legend.

I’m trying to engrave wallets I’m assuming it’s similar to this tho