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Post by gregory on Jan 26, 2014 15:19:40 GMT -8
When scanning a photo to be carved on my 1013 what works best. Scan as color, gray scale, or black and white? recently I scanned a family photo in gray scale and the carving was OK but not great, does anyone have a suggestion?
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Post by Greg on Jan 26, 2014 17:23:45 GMT -8
why are you scanning?
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Post by Greg on Jan 26, 2014 17:42:59 GMT -8
Normally you would load it in Gimp and manipulate it there, you need to trace and cut the background out for best results also use a shollow cut for pics like around .080".
Pics are hard to get right so you would turn them grey then change the light to get the best contrasting colors, and lot's of try's.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2014 15:37:52 GMT -8
  Here are examples of before and after of a photo I worked over for a customer for a xmas gift to give his dad, I can tell you that most photos have shadows in them that interferes with simply converting to greyscale and makes it quite a bit of work to extract out to make a good useable greyscale. After lots -o- work I got this one done and carved. |
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Post by gregory on Jan 27, 2014 16:55:06 GMT -8
I scan because it's a photo, I am going to look up Gimp, because I don't know what that is, and Bob just as a time reference for me, how long did it take you to get the image on the right ready to carve?
I got my Ring Master today and it is well built.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2014 17:31:52 GMT -8
I would guess that I spent about 4-5 hrs mostly a little at a time here and there working on that image. The main problem was the shadows in the picture like on the silos and the buildings. Carving raised relief with white being the highest, getting the shadows edited out was the time consumer. Great on the ringmaster, I am looking forward to getting mine here before too long, I want to go out and visit the guy I had met at a show to see it in action, just the weather here has been bad here and he lives about 50 miles from me + out in the country.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2014 17:39:17 GMT -8
GIMP is a free image editor that has great capabilities.( Gnu Image Manipulation Program ) Some people use photoshop as well, but I started out on GIMP so that's what I know best and it is free. There are free versions of photoshop, but I don't think they are as diverse as GIMP in what you can do unless you get an upgraded version (not free)
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Post by Greg on Jan 27, 2014 23:30:18 GMT -8
You really need to learn to make radial gradients it will brighten your picture without loosing the detail. Here is one picture I worked on with gradients until I got it so it would work. A gradient will fill an outlin better than the whole picture thats why you select sections at a time. s146.photobucket.com/user/gregs_photo/profile/ |
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Post by Greg on Jan 27, 2014 23:45:24 GMT -8
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Post by gregory on Jan 28, 2014 15:14:33 GMT -8
I liked the photos of smokey mountains, my wife, kids and their spouses and my grand kids spent the week in a beautiful cabin just outside Severville. Oh ya Ms. LSU caught my eye as well.
I downloaded GIMP2 so I am off and running, (well walking). I can't wait to have something to show.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2014 18:54:58 GMT -8
Thought I'd left a msg, but I see it's not here. Greg, I'm just starting to play with gradients. The question i have, using your pictures above, is whether or not you did multiple gradients - for example each ear, the feet, etc. My gradients are beginning to get better, but I seem to lose the detail. Are you doing the different gradients in different layers and then combining?
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Post by Greg on Feb 7, 2014 23:06:38 GMT -8
The fastest way to learn to use a gradient is to draw a circle with gimp on a blank page then select gradient and pull a ROUND gradient you can select what type of gradient you want in the settings. On a picture that has problem areas yes you can select or copy a section into a new invisible layer when you get everything how you want it you can lock it down although I normally keep a back copy before I do that just in case I want to tweak it a bit more. s146.photobucket.com/user/gregs_photo/profile/ |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2014 9:50:28 GMT -8
Thanks Greg. I've been playing a bit with a junk picture I picked off the internet to see what I could do with it. Hopefully these pictures show what I started with and what I ended with after playing with the gradient feature. Got a couple of spots on the end of the fins that I somehow missed when selecting the fish prior to the gradient, but with a little blur this fish actually would carve pretty well I think looking at ipicture. Got a lot to learn, but I'm getting there. Attachments:
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Post by Greg on Feb 9, 2014 19:54:25 GMT -8
This is an example of why you need to use a round gradient, you want the light to dark transition all around the edges and not from front to back like you get with a side to side gradient. Unless of course you are going for a fish head that protrudes more than the body which could be interesting too. s146.photobucket.com/user/gregs_photo/profile/ |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2014 8:03:14 GMT -8
The effect that I was going for was a highlighted head, to give a different cut depth from the head to the tail. What I used was a round gradient, however I had selected just the fish prior to using the gradient because in playing with the round gradient and an un-highlighted subject I was seeing a change to the background color also, and I wanted to keep that a pure black. So I selected the fish, then used the gradient, then used just a teeny amount of blur. What I did not do (in too much of a hurry to try this out) was to go around all the edges and make sure that I'd included all of the fish. I'll know to take more time on the next one.
I'm not actually going to cut this, I'm just trying to figure out how to improve my pictures to get better results. I'll never be in the category of you and Bob, but I enjoy just learning things slowly and figuring out how to make things better.
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