Laser Photo Wizard Software Version 8
Laser Engraving Photos is Now Easy!

This Laser Engraving Software prepares your photos with the click of a button for high quality laser engraving on any material.

Actual output on pre-finished maple plywood
Laser Engraving Photo Woman

Laser Engraving Photos

Laser Photo Wizard is now in its 8th version. In version 7 we introduced a box generator. In version 8 we improved the Colby dithering algorithm by using the artificial intelligence technique, simulated annealing. This new algorithm, Colby Annealing, not only gives great results, it also provides the ability to compensate for dot overlap. Depending on the resolution, material and lens used the dots on an engraver may overlap causing distorted images. The Colby Annealing algorithm can thin the dots but still place them in a optimum position.


Looking for G-Code, GRBL laser support?
If your laser is running the GRBL controler that needs GCode then check out:
GCode Photo Wizard

The program also supports:
  o Sketch Mode
  o Floyd Stenberg Dithering
  o Combined Colby and Sketch
  o An advanced contrast enhancement system   o 3D Gray
  o Text
  o Imported images that can be vectorized
  o Overlays
  o Frames for decoration and cutting
  o Outputs bitmaps and Enhanced Metafile with vectors.


We recommend you try the FREE DEMO now to convince yourself that Laser Photo Wizard Pro truly is fun to use and creates amazing output.

You can buy it now, for only $149.95, you will receive a license that can be used for 4 Windows computers   




3D Gray
Some of the newer lasers support 3D engraving. This mode changes the power of the laser depending on the gray scale of the image. While 3D depth maps are the best for this job they are hard to make. Laser Photo Wizard 5 assigns a gray scale value to the dithered image to create a 3D look.

Laser Engraving Photo Eagle

3D Gray is not true 3D. What it does is it raises the image off the background then engraves the raised area. To do this the image needs to be a png file with a transparent background. These files can easily be made by Photoshop and other image editing software. You can also use Green Screen Wizard to create a transparent background for any image shot on a green screen.
Simply changing your text to white and will create raised letters on the final image.

Click here to for a step by step guide to 3D Gray.





New in Version 7, Box Generator
While the focus of laser photo wizard is to be the worlds best photo engraving software, it is recognized that many of our uses are engraving these photographs to give as gifts or sell at shows. Most lasers are powerful enough to cut thin wood so what better way to show off your engraving but at the top of a box or the image of serving tray. The box generator can create a top and the bottom of a box or it can create a cube that is cut with a saw into 2 parts. The boxes can be any dimensions and there are several setting for the kind and number of cuts on the sides. The box generator can also create trays with handles. Click here for more information about the Box Generator.

Some Examples

Simple Cube , Tray with engravings
 Laser Photo Wizard Box Generator Laser Photo Wizard Box Generator



Smart Contrast

The problem with laser photo engraving is that most photos are of such low contrast that they do not engrave well. Colby dithering helps to fix that. Colby Sketch does fix it but the results do not always look photo realistic. Smart contrast looks at edges and surrounding areas to compute contrast. This technique has 2 part level and radius. The level setting determines how strong the effect, the radius setting will determine how wide an area is considered for the background. You can set these factors with sliders in advanced settings or you can simply use the radio buttons to set the sliders for you.
Radio Buttons (the defult)

Laser Engraving Control 		Sliders (Advanced)

Laser Engraving Control

No Contrast
Laser Engraving Control

 Mild
Laser Engraving Control

Strong
Laser Engraving Control 		Very Strong
Laser Engraving Control

Laser Photo Wizard Software Output Methods


Edge Sketching

The Sketch will attempt to look at edges and create a solid sketch of the image. This is very helpful because it is not only artistic, but lower cost lasers that do not control their power and position as well still can do a nice rendering on most materials.
Laser Engraving Photo

There are sliders that let you control the thickness of the edge and what is white and black.

Sample Sketch Output on Cherry:
Laser Engraving Photo

Dithering

Floyd-Steinberg Dithering

Floyd-Steinberg is a dithering algorithm. Dithering is converting a grayscale image to black and white, such that the density of black dots in the new image approximates the average grey level in the original.
Laser Engraving Photo

As you can see this does not look very good. That is because the displays output pixels do not match the converted image.
We can use the preview mode that takes the pure black and white for the laser output and shows you how it might look on the final output.
You can also show how it might look on the material like wood. The software will let you change this background image. This is not a perfect representation but it gives you a good idea of what the final product might look like.
The preview mode does not change the output image only what is shown on the screen.
Laser Engraving Photo Laser Engraving Photo


Colby Annealing Dithering

The Colby Annealing dithering algorithm was developed for this product by the author, Ken Colby. Like Floyd-Steinberg it tries to make the density of black dots in the new image approximate the average grey level in the original. Unlike Floyd-Steinberg it uses a software technique called Simulated Annealing that tries to arrange the black dots so that they tend to appear near the darker areas. This creates a image with higher contrast but it is less smooth then the Floyd-Steinberg. Because it is using Annealing the software can be told to reduce the number of black dots, this will cause the dots to spread out and help mitigate the effects of dot overlap.

The following output images show the Colby algorithm output but because of the small size of the images the differences from the Floyd-Steinberg are subtle. The gray image is attempting to deal with overlay so the dots are spread out.

Laser Engraving Photo
Laser Engraving PhotoLaser Engraving PhotoLaser Engraving Photo

Sample Dithered Output on Granit:
Laser Engraving Photo

Colby-Sketch

This method, that works well with wood, increases the contrast of the engraved image buy dithering and also considering the edges of the photo.

Laser Engraving Photo
Laser Engraving Photo Laser Engraving Photo

Actual Colby-Sketch Output on wood:
Laser Engraving Photo

Image Inversion and Mirroring


The system can also invert the photo, meaning that the black and white will be reversed. On stone and Plexiglas the laser makes a white mark. This would cause a negative image to be created. Turning on the inversion corrects this problem.
When engraving Plexiglas you may want to engrave on the back of the plastic. This would cause a mirror image to be formed. This is fixed by turning on mirroring.

Actual Colby-Sketch Output on Plexiglas:
Laser Engraving Photo

Add Text and Images
The system has an advanced text feature that lets you place text of any color and font anyplace on the output. Text can be output as bitmap text or vector text.

Actual output with text:
Laser Engraving Photo Laser Engraving Photo

Cutout Images
When loading an image, you can choose to have the system trace it and output it as vectors. The vectors can highlight or cut the image out depending on your engraver settings.

In this example the black silhouette was imported as an image and converted to cutting vectors to create this beautiful Christmas ointment:
Laser Engraving Photo Laser Engraving Photo

Laser Photo Wizard Software

Laser Photo Wizard Pro

o The Full Version supports all 3 conversion methods Sketch, Floyd-Steinberg Dithering and Colby.
o 3D Gray engraving
o Vector Cutouts
o Dialogs for Color Balance, Rotation and Scaling are provided.
o With the Full version you can add simple labels.
o Overlays, png files with transparent area can be use to frame the image.
o The Pro System has a robust system for adding text and additional images to your project.
o Skin Smoothing software make for better portrait output.
o Square, oval, and heart shaped frames can be added
o Lighting effects can be used the enhance the image
o A built in editor will let you clean up images especially in sketch mode.


For more information about the Pro system Click Here...

Buy it now, for only $149.95 you will receive a license that can be used for 4 Windows computers