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From Pumping Station One
Adding grayscale and colormapping tricks
Our Epilog laser engraver is capable of obtaining great results on a number of materials. Go ahead and add any strategies you've found to work well.
Our Epilog laser engraver is capable of obtaining great results on a number of materials. Go ahead and add any strategies you've found to work well.
See also: [[Laser settings]].
== Delrin dies ==
== Delrin dies ==
== Coated papers ==
== Coated papers ==
[[File:engravePaper1.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Engraved kraft cardstock]]
[[File:engravePaper2.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Engraved clay coated lithograph paper]]
Some art papers are coated with clay to make a smooth surface. These etch extremely well in regular mode to produce a "debossed" look. Use rubber stamp mode to reverse positive space to negative space (the entire field is etched except where objects are filled black). Experiment to find the lowest power and highest speed necessary to engrave to the depth you wish without discoloring the material.
Some art papers are coated with clay to make a smooth surface. These etch extremely well in regular mode to produce a "debossed" look. Use rubber stamp mode to reverse positive space to negative space (the entire field is etched except where objects are filled black). Experiment to find the lowest power and highest speed necessary to engrave to the depth you wish without discoloring the material.
Some inexpensive cover and card stock is coated or died in such a manner that it is a different color immediately below the surface. Give it a shot with some of the black cover stock Andy left in the bottom drawer of the cabinet next to the engraver.
Some inexpensive cover and card stock is coated or died in such a manner that it is a different color immediately below the surface. Give it a shot with some of the black cover stock Andy left in the bottom drawer of the cabinet next to the engraver.
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== Linoleum stamps ==
See, [http://wiki.fablab.is/wiki/Lasercut_linoleum_stamps Fablab's comprehensive wiki entry].
== Grayscale picture printing ==
If you want to print a picture in grayscale, do not activate color mapping. That way, the laser will adjust the laser power:
- Black is the raster power you did set
- White is 0%
- Anything in between will be a percentage of your raster power
== Using the Color mapping ==
In some cases, it is useful to raster or vector with different speeds and powers. To do that use the Color Mapping window in the Driver settings.
To make it easy, start with the basic colors Red (#FF0000 or 255,0,0), Green (#00FF00 or 0,255,0), Blue (#0000FF or 0,0,255). The colors black and white are reserved, white uses no power and black is the power you did set in the first tab.
You can have different settings for raster and vector, but be careful, the number of colors mapped is limited (maybe something like 16).
=== Using the color mapping to test a material ===
You can make yourself a setting for the driver and a small pdf file with full and just border squares of different colors. That way, you can have a test of different settings for your new material just in a single run. One trick is to write the settings directly in your PDF, that way, you can keep your piece of material for latter.
