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Engraving decorated text

Making a decorated text engraving is easier than you think. There are a wealth of resources to help do this, and with a little knowledge of graphics software, you can quickly produce something that looks amazing. here's a quick example that took 5 minutes, including finding the resources I needed:



The image was found on Pixabay, a site full of free, commercial resources with no attribution required. It's a good place to start until you need something a little more specialised. Search for keywords such as "banner" and "ornament", along with filtering on black and white images only. I downloaded it in PNG format, which is generally higher quality than the equivalent sized JPG image. If you are comfortable with the SVG format and your software can import it, this is the best format which scales to any size perfectly.

You can specify the download dimensions for PNG and JPG formats. You should calculate for at least 300dpi (dots per inch) in your final engraving, although the Wainlux K6 engraver is capable of up to 504dpi. At 300dpi, a 3-inch engraving will need to be 900 pixels.  Although it feels like you should always go for the highest resolution, materials such as wood will not benefit from the higher quality.

The image was brought into my graphics software (Affinity Designer) and the text added. If you are short of the font you need, sites like dafont.com have a wide selection of "100% free" fonts for download. Always try to match the font with the decoration, you can quickly lose the desired effect if you mix a modern font with an antique border or vice-versa.

Many graphics apps give you the capability to place the text on a curve, giving more artistic possibilities:




Finally, export your image to one of the K6 compatible formats. If using jpg, retain100% quality to prevent pixelating the final image.

 


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Comments

  1. Steve VNovember 18, 2020 at 5:23 PM

    Axel MaskArt'ade Goris on the Facebook page also suggest Canva.com for helping to design your graphics and flaticon.com for shapes and icons (attribution required for free icons).

    ReplyDelete
  2. RyanJanuary 2, 2021 at 12:20 AM

    How is Affinity Designer to use for a beginner?

    ReplyDelete

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