When we draw a vector object (1) in CorelDraw X6 our default line width is .007 (2). This line width is to wide for our laser to recognize the object as a vector cutline. The laser will try to raster engrave it which is no good.

If we want to change our line width go and select the Pen tool – red arrow. Your pen tool will flyout. Select the Hairline outline (1).

I have changed the line width to hairline. Now how about if I want to change the default. We can do this for just the Document or for all documents.

MAKE SURE NOTHING IS SELECTED in CorelDraw. First we need to select the Pen tool – red arrow line. Next select the hairline width (1). A hair line width is recognized by all lasers as a vector cut line (as long as the line colour is RGB).

Because nothing is selected CorelDraw will assume you want to change the defaults. You are presented with the following dialogue box. Select Graphic because our line or box is a Graphic image (1). Click Ok and our default line width for our Document is hairline. Note: this only changes the defaults for the existing document. We want to change the width for all documents.

Select TOOLS (1) | OBJECT STYLES (2).

When we open the Object Styles Docker it will dock to the right side of our workspace. We need to select the "Default Object Properties" (1). To open up the properties click on the triangle located at the left or where the red arrow is pointing.

Once you click on the triangle your Object Properties will expand out to show you a number of types of media. Select Graphic (1).

When you click on Graphic you are presented with the attributes of the line. Under width (1) select the pull down menu. Select Hairline instead of .0069 as is the default.

Select Hairline instead of .0069 as is the default (1).

Select the Export and the Import command (1). Select the "Set as New Document Defaults".

Select the Default Object Properties (1). This will change the defaults for any future documents. Click OK.

Here is the scanned image of the butterfly. I have imported the file in to CorelDraw.

Select Trace Bitmap (1) Outline Trace (2) and than Line Art (3)

Some logos file size is to large for CorelTrace so you will need to reduce the bitmap to increase efficiency of the trace. Click on Reduce Bitmap (1)

The Trace command is open. I like to use the Wireframe Overlay (1). When the Trace is done the object becomes red. The red line is the trace. The quality of the trace is reflected in the red line.

Here is our traced image in CorelDraw. I know it is traced as the status bar (1) indicated that there are 544 objects. The fact that there are objects means the logo is traced.

We need to be able to work on our individual objects. This requires that we Ungroup all the objects in our diagram. Go to Arrange (1) Ungroup All (2).

I have deleted the unwanted lines that where in the object. However you will notice that our butterfly has what is referred to as a double line. This means that there is an inside and an outside line. This is not good for us to cut out with the laser. If you where going to rotary engrave this logo you would have an issue also. thus we need to get rid of the double line.

This zoomed in view shows the double line that you will get. You could theoretically laser this but it would take to long because it would be a double pass. So we need to get rid of the double line that is on each object. This can be done but it is a little tedious.

When you select one object and you get a multiple of selected objects this group of objects can be held together either as a group or a combined group. A group is basically multiple objects that are held together but there is no relationship between them. To remove the group requires us to select the group go to the ARRANGE command and UNGROUP the objects. We can then select individual groups. In this case you will select the object and notice that the Ungroup command is not selected. This is because there is a relationship between the objects. Thus we need to "Break Them Apart". If you go under the ARRANGE menu you will see that this command is active. ONce you have broken the objects apart you can now select the objects individually.

To break the objects apart go to ARRANGE (1) BREAK APART (2)

You can now select individual objects. Now start selecting each group individually and break the objects apart. Than select with the inside or the outside object and delete them.

This can be a bit tedious but it is the only way I have found to do it.

In the case of one object we have a broken line so I can not break the lines apart. Thus I need to weld the line back together so that I can break the objects apart

Go to the tool box and hold done your mouse and the tool will fly out. Select the Shape tool (1).

Here is a close up of the break. I need to weld this break back together. I will need to drag the one end of the line onto the other end.

Drag the first line on top of the other line. I can do this with the shape tool selected. Just grab the node and hold your left mouse button down and drag. Try o keep the node fairly close so the lines match up.

Nw we need to drag the other node up so that we close off the open ends. Note: If you do not have a node to grab double click on the line and a node will be created. ONce it is created you can drag ti around.

To join the two ends requires us to weld the two ends

Once the weld is done select the line by going back to the pick tool (1)

You can see that the two ends of the line are now one. Now we can break apart the lines from each other

I have completed the inside and now each one of the vectors is its own object. All that is left is to now delete the outside line.

As I am inspecting the outside line I notice that there is a break in this line. I need to go through the same procedure as we did earlier of welding the two ends together

First open up the shape tool. In this case I had to add an node so I double clicked on the line and created a new node (1)

Pull the nodes so that the two ends overlap.

Once the weld is done select the line by going back to the pick tool (1)

The Two Ends Are Joined

We need to break the two lines apart. Select ARRANGE(1) | BREAK APART (2). Now we can delete one of the lines

I have deleted the inside line so we now have a single line so that we can cut out the image of the butter fly

Deleting the outside line gives me more detail on the inside of the wing but I loose my antenna.

Yu can see that if I keep the outside vector line than all I need to do is to delete the small circles in the antenna of the butterfly. Now we are done and we can cut this image out of whatever material that we want.

I selected the node edit tool and dragged in a node so that it highlighted the separation of the wings.

Here is the finished product. Notice the antenna is broken becasue it needs to be thickened up to support the thin lines.

Here is the original image we are going to work with

If I zoom in on the image you will see that there is little degradation in the pixels which means there is little compression done on the image. This is good and my adjustments will be yield good results.

Go to BITMAPS (1) MODE (2) GRAYSCALE (3).

Here is our image converted to grayscale.

Go to EFFECTS (1) | ADJUST (2) | CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT (3)

First we are going to increase the tonal value of the image. For a better discussion on tonal range see this website . To see our changes first we need to click on the "lock" button (1). Next we are going to slide our Highlights slider to the left (2). Drag the triangle to the left. This will "brighten" up our image by forcing the whiter pixels in our image to go white. Remember this adjustment only affects the highlights in my image or the white areas. To darken up my image I need to also adjust the "shadow" values in my image. To do this I move the triangle located on the left side of my histogram to the right (3). Notice how my histogram now fills up my whole pane.

Now when it comes to making any photo pop it requires us to use the Unsharp Mask. Trust me not to many photos printed by professionals have not under gone a certain amount of Sharpening. So if the professionals use it than we need to use it. Note: if you do sublimation than you should sharpen almost all photos unless the quality is really bad. The process of sublimation blurs out the photo and makes it fuzzy. This can be counteracted by the Unsharp mask. For a further discussion on the Unsharp mask go here
Make sure your photo is selected. Go to BITMAPS (1) SHARPEN (2) UNSHARP MASK (3).

Ok in this example I am going to do a do 3 examples with 3 different levels of adjustments done to them. First of all make sure the lock button is locked (1) so we can see our adjustments. Usually I am only working with the Percentage (2) and the Radius (3) and not the Threshold (4). For my first example my adjustment is 225 on the percentage and 1 on the radius.

Invert your image by going to EFFECTS | TRANSFORM | INVERT

Here is my first example. As I mentioned the darkness in the face can be attributed to the shadow cast by the hat. I need to increase this setting. Note:my image is being lasered on anodized aluminum. This is a "Fine" material and yields the best photos. You want your best photos – do it on this material or Black brass coated steel. We will look at wood in another article. Fine materials are processed one way course materials are another way – see this article.

Ok I have increased the radius and keep the percentage the same

Now we are getting somewhere.

Ok I have increased the Percentage and the Radius

Ok I showed both images around and it was a real toss up. Either this one or the image before it. Remember to invert the image before you laser it.

Ok you can be the judge. Remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The detail in this lasered engraved photo is exceptional. Remember if we are going on a fine material such as metal than these steps are the only way to go. Forget programs such as Photograv, 1 Touch they do not even come close with this type of material.

Here is an image that we will be working with for this lesson The technique I use here is the technique I use on all my photos. I do not use the so called specialized photo processes as these techniques produce just a good image as they do. It takes 2 minutes to do and the control over my image is a lot better.

Select the photo. My first step is to select the EFFECTS (1) ADJUST (2) CONTRAST ENHANCEMENT (3).

The next step is to increase the contrast or tonality of the image. In this step I am looking to create both more white area and black area in my photo. To much shades of gray will not laser very well on a tile. Our Original image is on the left (1). The adjusted image is on the right (2). The slider at the top left when moved right will cause the darker tones in the image to become darker (3). Vice Versa the triangle slider on the right when moved left will cause the lighter tones in the image to become lighter (4). Note: to see your adjustments make sure you have the lock button engaged (5).

Our contrast enhancement has been applied.

Before I print any photo whether it is on my laser or on my full colour printer I sharpen the image. The sharpening process brings out the detail in my image so that pops out at you. Most photos you take or get tend to be blurry and thus seem out of focus. Shapening the image gets rid of this issue. To access the Unsharp mask command go to BITMAPS | SHARPEN (2) | UNSHARP MASK (3).

The Unsharp dialogue box is pictured above. The original image is on the left (1). The sharpened image is on the right (2). The two sliders or controls that I work with are the Percentage slider (3) and the Radius slider (4). When it comes to porous material such as tile I usually slide the slider up to 500 (3). The Radius I adjust as is needed. But the more porous the material the more I slide the slider or increase the value. I do not typically adjust the Threshold slider (5).

Here is our Image Sharpened. Notice our our image pops now.

In the Convert To 1 Bit dialogue box you can see that our image has been transposed to strictly either black or white (2). Our original image on the left (1) is the grayscale image that is still composed of shades of gray. There is a bit of detail lost but not much – but htis is critical you want to lose detail in the image so that there is more detail when you laser the image in the tile. You have a number of choices to use in the conversion I typically use Jarvis, Stuckey or Floyd Steinberg (3). The Intensity slider decreases the amount of diffusion that is done in the image in that it becomes lighter.

Our image after it has had the error diffusion algorithm applied.

Here is the finished image on a 33 cent Home Depot tile. The reason that I think this tile looks so good is because I have taken out a certain amount of detail which has accentuated the remaining detail in the tile. When you look at the hair it jumps out at you and the face is easily recognizable with the original. If you remember what our original image looked like after we sharpened it you may be surprised to see this image. But again I reiterate that reducing detail actually increases detail. So even though it looks bad on the screen it will look good on the finished product.

This is the top of the box.

I have a vertical line at 3.25 (1) 3 (2) and .25 (3). There are horizontal lines at 3.75 (4) and 3.5 (5).

Draw a rectangle that is 2.75 inches wide and 3.25 inches tall (1).

Locate the box up to the top left hand corner .25 inches away on both sides. Uncheck the Relative Position box (1). The anchor is the top left hand corner (2). The coordinates are .25 inches on the H and 4.00 on the V (4).

Create a rectangle that is 3.25 inches long by .25 inches tall (1).

Open the Shaping Docker (1). Select the Weld command (2). Make sure the smaller rectangle is selected.

With the Weld command selected your cursor will turn into two rectangles joined.

Our image is now finished.

Here is the side that we need to reproduce. This side is like the other sides except that we have a 45 degree angle running up the right side (1). We will need to reproduce this.

We need to first draw a rectangle that is 3.25 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall (1).

We need to place our rectangle at the top left hand corner. To do this open up the Transformation Docker. Make sure that Relative Position is unchecked (1). Select our Left hand anchor (selection handle) (2). Place in 0 for your H and 4 for your V (3). Next click the Apply button (4). Our rectangle will relocate to the top left hand corner.

We need to add in some guidelines to our setup. Our first guideline needs to be horizontal and needs to be placed at the 3.75 inch mark (4 -.25 = 3.75

We now need to conniver the rectangle to curves. This is because the image is a special image and needs to be converted to curves so that we can manipulate the nodes on the rectangle. Go to ARRANGE (1) CONVERT TO CURVES (2).

Set your snap to "Snap to Objects". Go to View (1) Snap to Objects (2)

We need the manipulate the nodes on the rectangle that we created so that it looks like our original shape. We do this by dragging or adding nodes to our design. In this example we will need to add a node and move nodes around.

With the shape tool selected our mouse turns into a big triangle. Click on the rectangle that we created. The rectangle will become selected.

When you move the cursor over the rectangle you will notice that it changes a couple of times in terms of the mouse. When we are working on a segment we want the triangle to have the line that is curved (1) Next we need to add a node so that we can change our shape.Move the mouse over to the line and double click on the line. This will add a node. Note do not worry where the node is in terms of being on the cross between the guidelines. We can move it later on.

The blue dot indicates the node that I have added (1)

Click and Drag the node so that it intersects with the two crossed guidelines (1).

We are going to drag the node that is located at the top left hand corner. Drag it down so that it located at the point where the two guidelines intersect.

We need to add another node to our line. Double click on the line to add the node (1).

Drag up the node till it is at the intersection of the two guidelines (1). Notice that because we have the snap turned on the software will indicate that it is the edge and the intersection.

The one line on our piece goes at 45 degree. I am going to use a guideline to check the angle of the line and to see if it is right. It is easiest to rotate the guideline. Next place another guideline at the 2.5 inch mark. This is where our line is going at a 45 degree angle upwards (3). Double click on the line so that you see the two sided arrow – yellow box). We can rotate the guideline. We want to rotate the guideline at the intersection of the horizontal guideline and the vertical guideline. To do this requires that we place the anchor point at the 2.5 and 3.75 inch mark (4). You will notice that there is a circle with a dot in the middle. When we rotate the line it will rotate from that point.

Type in 45 degrees to angled the line (1). You can see that our line is right in line with the 45 degree guideline that we created (2).

I have super imposed my original object onto the guidelines so that you can see that the guideline matches up.

To show how you can use an existing design to allow you to draw over top of the original image I have used the original design to easily create the ellipses that I will use to trim out my design. Because the rectangle is exactly in the same location (the original design is on one page and the one – the rectangle is on the next page) all I need to do is to go Ctrl C and than go the page with the rectangle and press Ctrl V to paste the ellipse over the rectangle

The Ellipse size needs to be 2.283 on the H and 1.376 on the V (1)

Position our ellipse at 1.625 H and 1.425 V (1). The arrows point to the center of the ellipse.

Open up the trim docker. Make sure both Source and Target are unchecked. Make sure that the ellipses is selected.

Click on the "Trim" button. Your cursor will turn in to two rectangles one solid and one not. With the ellipse selected we are telling the software that we want to trim the rectangle with the ellipse. Click on the rectangle with the mouse.

Here is our object trimmed. We now need to place in the rectangle cuts.

Now that we have created our shape we need to now create our cut outs. Each one of the cut outs is .25 inches in square. So we need to draw a rectangle that is .25 inches by .25 inches.

Make sure the relative position is unchecked (1). Next we are going to use the top left hand corner for our anchor point (2). Make your copies 0 (3). Type in the coordinates (4) and than click on the Apply button. This will locate the rectangle where you need it.

We are going to duplicate the rectangle downwards to create 3 rectangles. First set your Relative Position to checked (1). Next set the number of Copies to 2 (2). Third set the h as 0 and the V to -5 as we are going down (3).

With the rectangle shapes on the left selected we can duplicate them and move the duplicates over to the right side. Make sure the position menu is open (1). Next check the relative position (2). Make your copies 1 (3). Type in 3 for H – because I want to move over 3 inches with the duplicate (4). Than click on the apply button (5).

I need to square off the bottom. before I can place in the rectangles. To be able to do this requires that I draw a rectangle and weld the two together. Draw a rectangle. Notice that I have used guidelines to help in placing the rectangle. Next in the Transformation docker select the Size Menu (1) My rectangle has to be 1.25 inches wide and at least a value that clears the hump of the oval. In this case I have used .2 inches (2). Click on the Apply button (3)

My rectangle needs to be in the proper position so that I can square off the bottom. You can see from the Transformation docker hat the position is 1.625 by 2.0 (1). I am measuring from the bottom middle anchor point (2).

Make sure that the Shaping Docker is open. Make sure the rectangle is selected. Select the Weld option (1). Click on the Weld button (2). Than you will notice the mouse change to two joined boxes and than click on the original shape (3).

Here is our piece with the rectangles on both sides and the bottom squared off. The image is coming together.

To duplicate the rectangles click on the Position command (1). Select the Relative Position make sure that it is check marked (2). Make your copies 1 (3). Your H and V values need to be 0 and 0 (4). Click on the Apply button (5) and your rectangles will be duplicated over top of the originals. Note: Make sure that you do not deselect the rectangles as it will require to select each one and holding down the shift key to do a multiple selection.

I have opened the rotate command in the Transform docker (1). Type in my rotation which is 90 (2). Click on the apply button (3).

I have selected the 3 rectangles and have located them to their location. It was easiest to use a bottom middle anchor (1). My position numbers are listed (2).

Make sure that the Shaping Docker is Open. Make sure that the 3 rectangles are selected. Select the Trim command (1). Select the Trim button (2). Your cursor will turn into a cursor with a black and white rectangle. Repeat on the other rectangles.

Here is the piece done after we have completed our trim. All we need to do is to add in the circle at the top left.

The last step in creating this piece is to create the circle that is located in the top right had corner. From the original dimensions I have .366 by .366 (1).

Now that the circle is done we need to position it. To do this requires that we open up the position tab (1) in the transformation docker. Make sure that we are using the center handle (2). Our position numbers where placed in the for the H and the V position (3). Click the Apply button (4).

Here is the finished image. There are two sides of this design. To do the other side all we have to do with this piece is to copy the piece and flip it 180 degrees.