Will McKiernan Laser Engraving

For this engraving I decided to use a photo of my grandfather I took. I really enjoy the contrast and varying values in the photo and wanted to see how it would turn out as an engraving. I was excited to try transferring one medium into another and I felt this picture would work well.

I first put the photo into Photoshop and adjusted the Levels to really enhance the values. I then ran the photo through two Guassian blur filters and adjusted the blur until I had very clearly defined value shapes and less fine detail. Then I transferred the photo into Illustrator and expanded it, then traced it to create paths distinguishing all the different value shapes and allow for engraving.

I wanted to use a fairly light colored wood because I felt that it would display the image the best. I choose a rough plank of wood that had some imperfections across the surface because I felt that the small imperfections would add a good artistic element to the image. Unfortunately, the gradient wouldn’t show up on the wood I chose. However, I am still very happy with how it turned out.