Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Grayscale photo engraving was something that fascinated early uptakers of CO2 laser machines. , including myself. Limited capability of the HV power supply response produced rather fuzzy results and people would spend hours pefecting what they considered to be amazing tone charts for various types of wood. Sadly the fact that grayscale can only exploit the tonal burning properties of organic materials such as wood, leather and card, rather limited applications. Nobody investigated the principles of the process they were trying to exploit.
Here we are in the diode laser era where the limited capability of such equipment has created an explosion in those attempting to exploit grayscale for photo engraving. There are hundrereds of videos explaining how to make and use a Material Matrix to help find the best engraving or cutting parameters.. As a tool to aid finding cutting parameters , the concept is fine. However, for engraving settings the whole concept is flawed . It's a myth
This investigation explains and demonstrates the scientific principles that undermine the whole grayscale photo engraving philosophy.
Myths have their own inertia and the industry standard software. Lightburn, has a built in tool help naive users create such a matrix. HOWEVER, in fairness to Lightburn, I know this was not the intended use because the tool has MANY parameters to chose from (some not available for diode or glass tube lasers). It's that mythical inertia of peer pressure that advises new users that Speed and Power are the key parameters.
I believe the original intent of Ruida was to allow their controller to use the grayscale facility for 3D engraving. Even today the RDWorks manual just contains this gobbledygook description for the use of the grayscale switch.
"Direct output: gray scale bitmap, according to the actual graphics gray.in output, already color deepplace laser energy big, color shallow place laser
Energy is small."
In Lightburn that grayscale switch is hidden within the GRAYSCALE output option
Grayscale photo engraving was something that fascinated early uptakers of CO2 laser machines. , including myself. Limited capability of the HV power supply response produced rather fuzzy results and people would spend hours pefecting what they considered to be amazing tone charts for various types of wood. Sadly the fact that grayscale can only exploit the tonal burning properties of organic materials such as wood, leather and card, rather limited applications. Nobody investigated the principles of the process they were trying to exploit.
Here we are in the diode laser era where the limited capability of such equipment has created an explosion in those attempting to exploit grayscale for photo engraving. There are hundrereds of videos explaining how to make and use a Material Matrix to help find the best engraving or cutting parameters.. As a tool to aid finding cutting parameters , the concept is fine. However, for engraving settings the whole concept is flawed . It's a myth
This investigation explains and demonstrates the scientific principles that undermine the whole grayscale photo engraving philosophy.
Myths have their own inertia and the industry standard software. Lightburn, has a built in tool help naive users create such a matrix. HOWEVER, in fairness to Lightburn, I know this was not the intended use because the tool has MANY parameters to chose from (some not available for diode or glass tube lasers). It's that mythical inertia of peer pressure that advises new users that Speed and Power are the key parameters.
I believe the original intent of Ruida was to allow their controller to use the grayscale facility for 3D engraving. Even today the RDWorks manual just contains this gobbledygook description for the use of the grayscale switch.
"Direct output: gray scale bitmap, according to the actual graphics gray.in output, already color deepplace laser energy big, color shallow place laser
Energy is small."
In Lightburn that grayscale switch is hidden within the GRAYSCALE output option
