Metal Photo Card - Fairie Dragon - Original Artwork
Instruction
I love to engrave metal photo cards with my F1. The settings are almost always the same and it is quick and easy. I decided to share how I do a photo card.
But, also included, one of my original art pieces which I used for this photo card. I am allowing use of this art for your own engravings. You can use it as I have it here, for a metal card photo engrave, or for another engrave of your choice.
I have always loved to draw. I used to love to copy the Sunday comics when I was in 3rd grade. I had a very active imagination and soon developed my passion to original works. As I grew older, I started moving from black and white pencils art to colored pencil art. Eventually, however, the passion became cost prohibitive. I had to forego my art due to how much my materials were costing and not recouping enough to make it worth the time to pursue.
Then I discovered digital art in the late 2010s and that was when I really began to go all out. I started to draw again feverishly, bringing things to life in my art I could only dream about. I did not have to worry about materials and it made it so much easier to just concentrate on the content.
This particular piece was almost a month in the design and making. I call it “Fantasy In Autumn”. It was my first art piece that won an award and I am very proud of it.
I normally sell my works but for my laser engraving community, I am offering this piece for you to use as you would like in your engravings.
In addition, I am sharing how I engrave my photo cards using this piece.
I first load my art into XCS.
I select it and then crop it to the size I want. In this case, I am using the black metal business cards from xTool. So I crop this and adjust the size to 2.125"x3.375 inches.
Once I am satisfied with how it is sized, I then select the art and click the Adjust at the top of the screen.
I increase the sharpness to 50. Some art does not require this much but I do find it lends to sharper images that will engrave so much better on these metal cards when it is higher. Then I play with the brightness a bit. In this case, since the original is already brightly colored, I only increased it to 5 which helped to bring out the highlights enough to properly show the background AND the foreground while still maintaining the “glow” of the wings.
Then I grayscale it by just a couple of points. This is the bottom line just above the Invert checkbox. Grab the left slider and slightly shift it to about 2 -5
Finally, since I am engraving on a dark background, I invert the image to allow the bright spots in the art to engrave and the dark parts to remain untouched or lightly engraved.
I have found the settings listed in this step work on almost every single photo engrave I do. My art was no exception.
Line up your art using the framing function. Once you are properly aligned, close the lid and process using these settings. Total time is about 4 minutes to engrave this.
I am pleased to let you use this art for your own designs but it is not allowed to be sold by itself as your own design or original work. You are allowed to engrave it and sell the resulting product commercially, however.
Please provide credit if asked and do not provide this work to another without my express consent either free or for sale.
Thank you for enjoying this with me and happy engraving.