How to Engrave and Cut on Laser Printer

If you're looking to learn how to engrave an image / words and cut it out in one process this is the place to be.

For this tutorial I will be explaining how to do it with Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator because that's what I use and find the easiest / best way to engrave and cut on a laser printer/engraver.

• First you start out by choosing what you want to engrave, for me it was an image with additional quotes that I added in on a software called adobe illustrator. ( I usually look up on google, or really any search engine, the type of image i'm looking for, once I find it I save to my files as is or you can save it as a jpeg )

• Once you've found your image and saved it to your computer / files, open Adobe Photoshop and select the tab 'file' and select 'open' and you should be able to find your file pretty easily and open it. (Sometimes if the image file is saved onto your desktop you can drag it into the program with your cursor and it will work)

• After the file has been opened up into Adobe Photoshop, you're going to have to rasterize. Make sure your image is selected then there should be an option under the 'Layout' tab that says 'Rasterize', then select 'All layers'. ( This will rasterize the image meaning you've changed the pixels to be able to laser print it. )

• If you want to add numbers, letters or text of any kind, that's where adobe illustrator comes into play. There's a text button where you're able to choose where you want to type, the font, and text size. It's pretty simple, just type what you want then make the words/text the correct color according to your laser printer. ( For me it's black so that's what I would do so that my laser printer can read and identify the text easily. )

• The next step is cutting the image out. If you want a shape as a border Adobe Photoshop is relatively easy to do this in. On the left side of your screen will be many buttons and among those is the 'Ellipse Tool' ( It should look like a circle ). The ellipse tool allows you to make perfect shapes with just a few clicks and it's easy to get the hang of as well. Choose your shape and choose how you want it to be around your image. Then make the circle red and make the red layer the one that you want cut out. If you want a border around your engraved image(s) that you don't want to cut through the wood make it green under the layer button. (This way it will engrave the black and green layer, & cut out the red layer)

• Finally, download your finished file to a flash drive and upload it to the computer connected to your laser printer. Open it in your printers software and the printer should engrave everything you told it to as well as cut out the border you decided on.

Supplies

• Adobe Photo shop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Laser engraver