My FIL recently restored his dream car, a 1956 Chevy Bel Air. Since his 70th birthday is coming up, I wanted to try to make him something, and get some laser practice at the same time. The original pic was taken with my phone and then edited / prepared for the laser in Photoshop. I saved it out as a jpg before importing it into RDworks. I made 4.5 attempts, before I finally got the results I was looking for. Anyone interested in the settings I used, please see below. I am really impressed with the detail that is possible with this laser, and I am sure it will improve as I get more familiar with the process. If you look closely at the front bumper, you will see the reflection of clouds, a fence, and me taking the pic. Pretty cool.
Engraved on a ~ 12" x 10" piece of alder.
After the jpg was imported into RDworks, I adjusted the size to fit the wood and then configured the following settings.
Selected the BMP button:
Input resolution 1000
Dither --> Net graphic
Frequency 60
Engraving settings:
Speed 500
Min / Max power 20
Scan Mode: X_unilateralism
Interval 0.08
Total laser time on this run: 44min, 44 seconds.