This is part 2 in our series on laser engraving photos. One of the problems with getting photos from customers is that the quality of the photo is out of our hands. A lot of people do not realize that the success of any photo that is lasered engraved is directly related to the quality of the original photo. The better the quality of the photo the better the photo will be reproduced on the laser.
Back in earlier years when we where given a photo and asked to scan it into our computer we at least had the opportunity to control the quality of the photo that got scanned in. Our only problem tended to be the moire pattern that occurred. Now most of the photos that we get are digital and we receive them via email or memory stick. The problem that we have with receiving images this way is that we are at the mercy of the image settings that where setup in the digital camera. This tutorial will focus on the ins and outs of working with digital photos.
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This is typically more prevalent on early versions of CorelDraw up to X4. However I have seen it happen in X5. If you are having troubles getting AI (Adobe Illustrator) files into CorelDraw than open them up in Adobe Reader and than re save them as a PDF. Then open them up in CorelDraw. This tutorial will show you how to do this. I will assume you have the latest version of Adobe reader on your computer which is free so there is no reason not to have it.

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This is the second part of my tutorial on lasering photos onto glass. This example came from a seminar I did with some of my customers. This photo is approximately 50 years old. We had to get rid of some creases to get it looking at least good enough for the laser machine. Download the sample file

Remember that this is only the first step in this process. You need to get your power and speeds set properly and watch this video on how to laser glass – How to Laser Engrave Glass

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One of the hardest techniques to learn is creating photos on glass. It is not easy and requires you to know how to adjust photos in CorelDraw. To get the best photos requires the use of a transfer mask typically. Although you do not have to use a transfer mask I tend to find the best results are achieved when you use a transfer mask. For more info on the actual lasering technique of lasering on glass go to my Lasering a Photo on Glass video. The photo we are using is a old “black and white photo from 50 years ago. It had to be scanned and fixed up (repair creases) before I could laser it. I like this photo because this is a very indicative type of photo that one would receive in a retail environment. Sometimes when we use laser suppliers photos they are to good and sometimes do not give us a good actual example. This photo was given to me during a training tutorial I was giving and these are the actual files we created.
Download the sample file

I had a customer ask me to do a layout for him on a metal plate with some thermark so he could laser it. I could have done this creating 3 columns and used the align tools but I thought it would be a good exercise to show you how to use the table command in X4 and X5. The table command allows me to add the 3 columns I need to create this layout very easy. Check out the Thermark on Steel video that was done on this topic in my video section.

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Although I see less and less use of the .plt file for import I still occasionally get questions on using the .plt or plotter. One of the common issues when importing or exporting a plt file is that the curves will break down and not be smooth. This can be easily resolved by increasing the curve resolution in the export filter. Note this same issue was prevalent when I used to get files from AutoCad where the 0′s are more a hexagon shape

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One way to increase the perceived value of your product offering is to include a clients logo with that product. If you want to impress your client and provide them with the best looking product you can do than offer to reproduce there logo. Not only will they be impressed but they will be more inclined to pay you top dollar for that product. The one problem with offering to reproduce a clients artwork is that the artwork that they supply is not in either a good format (ie traced) or may be in a bad quality web format (gif, jpeg, png). In this tutorial well will look at tracing a one colour good quality logo. Available in X3, X4 and X5. See our video on CorelTrace

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This is a file that was given to me by one of my customers who needed some help in the CorelDraw print merge. The original file I got had all the lines in one column so I suggested that the customer fix it up so that there were 20 columns of names. This excel file had over 5000 names. Because there was 20 names per plate Corel created 287 plates with 20 lines per plate. I would not want to enter this text in manually. Check out the CorelDraw print merge video