Hello James,
Getting a nice photo carve is really hard. I am bu no means an expert (or even that good at it yet) but like you I have been experimenting for several weeks trying to figure it out.
Here is what I have learned so far.
- Use your vbit. If you have a 60 degree vbit that will be your photo carving bit. If you do not have a 60 degree then a 90 degree will also work.
- Use a photo editing app to convert your jpeg picture to black and white before you try to import it to Easel
- The Easel vectorizer will work if the picture is black and white and simple. You do not want any background, just a simple subject on a blank background.
- Tell Easel you are using a very small bit. I usually set bit size to .003 inches with the 60 degree vbit
- After the image is loaded and vectorized in Easel, do not forget to select the entire image and set your depth of cut. You should set a very shallow depth for the cut, no more than .05 to .07. I have found that the shallower the better the results will be,
- After the cut is complete spay paint the wood a dark color (I usually use black) and then when the paint has dried sand down the top surface leaving the dark color in the cuts. This will make the picture stand out.
And lastly do not set your expectations too high. Using Easel you are not going to achieve the high quality photo carvings you will see that others have done. They are using speciliazed phot carving software like PhotoVCarve from Vectric
PhotoVCarve Product Page | Vectric. This software costs $149. I have not purchased it yet, but with every disappointment I have I get closer to making a purchase. They do have a free trial so you can download it and see what it will do.
Thanks for the videos you are posting, they are very entertaining.
If you want and easy win, I suggest you download the trial version of Vcarve desktop from Vectric and load up the demo file for the paradise box top. The trail will let you play with it and then generate the gcode for the X-carve (you will need to down load the X-carve post processor, there are instruction on this forum). Then you can really see what your X-Carve is capable of doing.
Here is a link to my post about carving the Paradise box top.