I am trying to find a cost effective way of getting my customers coats of arms or crests converted to large images in black on white suitable for my laser engraver.

Can anyone help on a professional basis, i want to pay for it, but my clients as usual want to do it the cheapest way possible.

I am getting one after the other sending me the proverbial free to download postage stamp size colour image (not a true history search or anything) but what the heck if that's what they want i am in the business of giving people what they want at the price they want to pay IF POSSIBLE

Ideally for the laser i need black on white, NO COLOUR, and about A4 size so i can view it full size on my screen, just scrolling down .

Anyone who can help with an idea of cost would be appreciated.

Example of what i am sent

http://www.narrowboatforsale.toptenwebsites.co.uk/files/leach-coat-of-arms.jpg

Windows 95 paint shop pro changed image to grey scale

This one I first raised the contrast up all of the way and then converted to grey scale

Hi Greg, Eric has been trying to teach me how to do that with Photoshop, trouble is

(A) theres too much shading which the laser will remove as if it were black, leaving a gaping hole.

(B) the image will still be to small, and if enlarged becomes to poor a quality.

In an ideal world, and theres proof in my website, the coats of arms are drawn or created first with a bold black outline of the design, and then filled in as if doing a painting by numbers.

If the clients purchased a true design full size from a genuine source, i could easily as you have proven deal with it quite easily, but they don't they download any old design from the internet which lets face it have intentionally been displayed too small for anyone to use (very sensible) no research , and generally totally unrelated to their family's at all.

Heres one done properly : I had to reduce it a lot to put on website : http://www.deloreanjewellery.co.uk/hiqh … image.html

And heres what Eric helmed me do : http://www.deloreanjewellery.co.uk/laserdesigns.html

I appreciate the input, i really need to find a solution, my future business is possibly going to be reliant on getting this done, regularly, quickly and efficiently, rather than me trying to fudge it with photoshop and no technical skills.

I just want to make the signet rings, which is what i am good at, and let my engraver do the rest

Eric had to help with this one aswell http://www.deloreanjewellery.co.uk/files/IMG_25.jpg

Hi Viv, There are a number of free image manipulators, What do you have at your disposal?. It seems as if it depends on the quality of the supplied image to start with as you have said. To do what you want and it appears Eric has done so you need to either play with photo editing to gain skills or get a price to convert.

It is a matter of changing the major details to black and deleting any blemishes (Change to white) I would Google "convert image for a laser" I just did that and here is one to check out
http://studio.imagemagick.org/pipermail/magick-users/2007-November/020340.html
And
http://www.rabbitlaserusa.com/manuals/rastertovector_corel.pdf

It seems convert to a Vector drawing is the go. I would be interested in your method you choose. I would seek out software that does it easily and check out forums discussing it.

The internet teaches me anything I want to know, just ask the question, there is a lot more artificial intelligence in a browser than most realise. I was amazed, My son pointed that out, I thought you had to supply the information or part there of. Try it, Just ask.

I'm not 100% sure if this will work, but here is my shot

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p248/pug2775/coat-of-arms-colour-750-wid_zps3035c5ed.png

I put the photoshop file http://www.tbaygeek.org/storage/coat_o_arms.zip

To much black David. Viv is only looking for the outlines.

Ahhh... missed the point again

Just playing around with this Viv. Is this what you are looking for? I hope it helps

http://www.abcomputered.com/crest-arms.jpg

http://www.abcomputered.com/crest-arms-2.jpg

http://www.abcomputered.com/crest-arms-3.jpg

or this:

http://www.abcomputered.com/crest-arms-4.jpg