If you just want Santa, download the PNG and go to town. The image is set to be good for a 3 inch ornament blank. You can skip to step 7 for engraving instructions.

 You might enjoy looking at user: need.it's tutorial https://www.designfind.com/project/11542 if you wish engrave deeply.

If you want to learn to make pseudo-3d images that don't depend on color, keep reading.

I am using Leonardo.ai here and only using the free tools, but there are many places to create images, even in XCS!

In your favorite Image generator, go to where you write your prompt. In Leonardo, that is ‘Image creation’.

In general, good prompt writing will use lots of adjectives, and Leonardo.ai has tools to help you enhance your prompt, but in this case we want to turn that ‘help’ OFF. 

In the settings bar, it is labeled ‘Prompt Enhance’, as shown in the picture. Open up the full image for complete information).

For this image I also chose the options 3d render as the preset style and set contrast to ‘high’

Now write your positive prompt, that is what you want the image to show. 

To create these types of images there are some keywords that will help you to more consistently create the look. This is the ‘big trick’ to doing this

• Bas Relief - the biggest keyword to include, will create that ‘partially carved’ look
• mezzo-rilievo (optional term) - especially deep relief, will sometimes make an image that looks completely ‘cut through’ the material
• gypsum - encourages the AI to create the image in smooth, mostly white appearance.

In my experience using words like ‘white marble’ will create a marbleized appearance, which is probably not what you want if you want a smooth image without texture.

basso-relievo, which is another word for bas relief works less well. My guess is that there are simply fewer training examples using the term in Leonardo. I avoid it as a key term.

architectural descriptions like frieze or rondel are optional and help influence the shape, but the image dimensions selected in the options bar have more of an impact.

For the image I am sharing, the prompt I used was “bas relief ornament depicting santa in his sled carved in gypsum. roundel ornament carving in gypsum mezzo-rilievo. The white stone gives a classic, timeless look.”

If you just generated with the positive prompt, you are likely to get views with the object at an angle, or with variable lighting across the face of the picture- It is more dramatic and makes for a great image to look at, but a bad image for engraving.

To combat this, you want to select ‘negative prompt’ under advanced settings.

It the negative prompt writing space you will now see a new space to tell Leonardo.ai what you DON'T want.

you will want to list things like:

• ‘interesting’ views like: ¾ view, profile, angular perspective
• colorful images like:  neon, metallic, colorful,  red, green, blue, gold
• uneven lighting like: bokeh, window light, sparkle, cast shadow, 
• flat styles like: tatoo, anime, cartoon, sketch, flat, watercolor

Now is NOT the time to use your great vocabulary. If you are deciding between words use the more common, simple choice. 

For example, you would probably be better off describing something as ‘simple’ or ‘plain’ rather than using words like ‘spartan’, ‘ascetic’, or 'austere'.

Using this prompt recipe will not guarantee that every single image is ‘spot on’ it is a probabilistic process. If the results are not what you want change the prompt and regenerate with a new seed.

Leonardo gives you 150 free credits a day to play with, so you will be able to try different things out. 

Download your image

The free square format will generate an image of 1120 x 1120 px, which will engrave a 300 dpi image at around 3.7 inches.

You may wish to upscale the image if you want something for a larger area.

you may wish to delete the background. XCCS, Leonardo.ai or Image-R has background removal options, google studio can do this, there are many options.

I used an ancient version of photoshop on a mac. 

I double clicked on the layer to set it to read ‘layer 0’, moved my cursor to the center of the image, held down the shift and the option button at the same time while dragging out a circle selection.

Then I inverted the selection so it was selecting the area outside of the main image and hit delete before re-saving.

You can regularly engrave, but for added depth there are some steps you can take in XCS.

Note this deep engraving may give poor results on some plywood, as it WILL burn through the top layer

• Double the image tso there are two of the same picture (control C, then Control V)
• put each on a different layer
• on one copy, set the sharpness to 100 and grayscale to 255 (V. 1.8) It will be 50 max on the new version. Just Max Sharpness and range of shades.
• on the other copy, reduce the greyscale so that the darkest darks are still visible, but the light shades are gone (around ⅓ down the slider)
• Move the adjusted copy below the full grayscale image.
• Align the image both in the center horizontally and vertically
• group the images so they are perfectly aligned together
• Use the atkinson filter (or another if you prefer the look)
• Use the Xtool Easyset library for your machine:
• https://easyset.xtool.com/materials/1?t=1725852775953&source=homePage

NOTE - this will make the dark parts of the image very deep! If it is TOO deep reduce the power. Remember, you are engraving the dark parts twice!