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gimp vs imag-r
#1
Hello all. I use the following website for processing images for my ortu laser master 20 watt desktop laser machine.

ImagR - Prepare Photos for Laser Engraving - 5 Steps (imag-r.com)

the one thing i really like about this website is the fact that it has an auto adjust feature.

when you first load the image into the website, it auto converts to greyscale, then you crop it, resize it to the dims you want along with a DPI of 254. Once it has been resized, you can either adjust brightness, contrast, sharpen, etc manually, or hit the auto button. 

does gimp2.10 have a simular feature so i can process my images in gimp for laser engraving? 

I mainly use imag-r because it is super fast and has all the stuff built into it and its FREE!!!

thanks
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#2
Are you promoting this website?
I'm asking, because you seems so happy with it, like you don't want to change and it looks like a SEO spam...

Yes GIMP can do it like any similar software, those are the very basic functions that any online/offline image processor do.

On a side note: If the website you are enjoying so much speaking about is "free" (for the moment), the software to download from this website is NOT.

gimp vs imag-r:
  • imag-r: $199,00 (very limited function & over priced)
    License Details
    Expiration Never. (Lifetime license)
    Limit 3 activations allowed
  • GIMP: Free (way more powerful than imag-r)
    Licence Details
    Expiration Never. (Lifetime license)
    No activation needed (you can give GIMP to any one)

In the end if I'm obliged to buy a software for that purpose, I would buy Affinity Photo/Designer ($49 life time license) rather than imag-r
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#3
(07-23-2021, 04:09 AM)PixLab Wrote: ""Are you promoting this website?
I'm asking, because you seems so happy with it, like you don't want to change and it looks like a SEO spam...

Yes GIMP can do it like any similar software, those are the very basic functions that any online/offline image processor do.

On a side note: If the website you are enjoying so much speaking about is "free" (for the moment), the software to download from this website is NOT.

gimp vs imag-r:
  • imag-r: $199,00 (very limited function & over priced)
    License Details
    Expiration Never. (Lifetime license)
    Limit 3 activations allowed
  • GIMP: Free (way more powerful than imag-r)
    Licence Details
    Expiration Never. (Lifetime license)
    No activation needed (you can give GIMP to any one)

In the end if I'm obliged to buy a software for that purpose, I would buy Affinity Photo/Designer ($49 life time license) rather than imag-r""

no i am not promoting the imag-r site??? why do you assume this? I am askign how to do the SAME in GIMP so i can get AWAY from imag-r
are you trying to promote others away from gimp? do you not like Gimp? do you want gimp to be discontinued? I say this because you are wanting me to use imag-r so bad.. Oh, and yes, imag-r is free, i have been using it for a few months now for my laser engraver, but trying to get away from it, but it feels like you want me to continue to use imag-r?

since you missed my original question, here it is again, copied from my OP: does gimp2.10 have a simular feature so i can process my images in gimp for laser engraving?
thanks
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#4
Sorry, I just saw a spam before your post, so I thought it was the day Wink

Again Sorry, and Welcome Big Grin

Not sure about laser engraving, but for the image processing in GIMP, yes it's quite easy
If I understood, you do need a black and white picture?
GIMP can automatically put your picture in grayscale (you can chose this in the preferences), crop/resize and DPI it's all easy access and DPI can be set to your preferred value as default

adjust brightness, contrast, sharpen, etc manually, or hit the auto button.
All those tools are in "Colors" and in "Filters" also GIMP has even multi "AUto" button Wink


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#5
No need to get heated. A post like this can look a bit spammy Wink Trying to get an example image, that the software produces. They have a strange sense of 'free' pay-what-you-want $5 -$10...for their free bundles.

Skimming through what must be an over long tedious video, I got these examples: https://imgur.com/XW95pDa.jpg Gimp can certainly do that. As well as changing the mode to greyscale, desaturating a colour image gives some variation. The program options seem to be limited to scaling, contrast and brightness, sharpen, some effects, which I did not see, inverting the image. In Gimp something like this: https://i.imgur.com/gTHg0cs.jpg There are third-party plugins that might be useful for extra effects.

Image format: bmp / png / jpg - no problem for Gimp exporting those. SVG will be a problem. Gimp is a raster editor, for svg Inkscape is the application to use.
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#6
(07-23-2021, 07:27 AM)PixLab Wrote: Sorry, I just saw a spam before your post, so I thought it was the day Wink

Again Sorry, and Welcome Big Grin

Not sure about laser engraving, but for the image processing in GIMP, yes it's quite easy
If I understood, you do need a black and white picture?
GIMP can automatically put your picture in grayscale (you can chose this in the preferences), crop/resize and DPI it's all easy access and DPI can be set to your preferred value as default

adjust brightness, contrast, sharpen, etc manually, or hit the auto button.
All those tools are in "Colors" and in "Filters" also GIMP has even multi "AUto" button Wink

ok, so the stretch contrast under the auto button automatically adjusts contrast? Am i understanding you correctly?

i eventually want to learn how to do it manually, but its hard for my eyes to see the difference with greyscale so i cant always produce the best images for laser engraving. 

ill have to try the multi auto button and see how that does haha. 

There is a plugin for gimp for laser engraving, but it costs money and has had some issue with it so im trying to accomplish same thing but actually learning how to do it haha

(07-23-2021, 07:35 AM)rich2005 Wrote: No need to get heated. A post like this can look a bit spammy Wink  Trying to get an example image, that the software produces. They have a strange sense of 'free' pay-what-you-want $5 -$10...for their free bundles.

Skimming through what must be an over long tedious video, I got these examples: https://imgur.com/XW95pDa.jpg Gimp can certainly do that. As well as changing the mode to greyscale, desaturating a colour image gives some variation. The program options seem to be limited to scaling, contrast and brightness, sharpen, some effects, which I did not see, inverting the image.  In Gimp something like this: https://i.imgur.com/gTHg0cs.jpg There are third-party plugins that might be useful for extra effects.

Image format: bmp / png / jpg - no problem for Gimp exporting those. SVG will be a problem. Gimp is a raster editor, for svg  Inkscape is the application to use.

i agreee, their free pay what you want bundles are ish. FOr right now, the free stuff does a decent job. upload, crop, resize, auto adjust, select material, and download. 

my goal is to produce the same or better images with in gimp and just as fast. I just do not know if images for laser need to be more greys than whites and blacks. 

and like i mentioned above to the other poster, me eyes have a harder time with greyscale to differentiate between greys etc.

right now its looking for a good auto adjust setup where i open the image, set the size, dpi, then hit auto adjust and get a really good result.

thanks
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#7
ok, so the stretch contrast under the auto button automatically adjusts contrast? Am i understanding you correctly?
No, Colors > Auto > White balance... will do it (on B&W as well)

i eventually want to learn how to do it manually,
If you are selling you laser thing,
Yes! indeed IMHO you will need to learn to do it manually for example if a customer want to engrave something which appear in the colored photo, but disappear with all the "Auto" function in B&W, you will need to know how to make it appears when it becomes B&W.
I would recommend you to learn the "Levels" first (it's a simplest version of the Curves), the "Auto input levels" in that tools is exactly the same as the "Auto > White Balance..." I spoke above
2 quick links I found for a good start to learn "Levels":
https://patdavid.net/2011/07/getting-aro...ng-levels/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kFhN4T8uc

but its hard for my eyes to see the difference with greyscale so i cant always produce the best images for laser engraving.
You are no obliged to start with a B&W, personally I would do Levels in Colors then use the mono mixer (Colors > Desaturate > Mono Mixer...) or use any desaturate method that give a quick result I'd like AFTER adjusting the color,
Why? because your conversion in black and white will always depend about colors and darkness/lightness of these colors.
I love this tool -> Colors > Desaturate > Mono Mixer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SdjdPGb4B0
But it's me only, if you don't like it, in the Colors > Desaturate menu you have other tools to chose from Wink

Also when you have finished to adjust your B&W picture, you might want to take a look at this tool > Menu Colors > Threshold... If laser engraving is just made of black and white spots (no gray gradients), you might love this tool. But I do not have any idea what type of B&W you need to do laser engraving Wink
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#8
(07-24-2021, 03:14 AM)PixLab Wrote: ok, so the stretch contrast under the auto button automatically adjusts contrast? Am i understanding you correctly?
No, Colors > Auto > White balance... will do it (on B&W as well)

i eventually want to learn how to do it manually,
If you are selling you laser thing,
Yes! indeed IMHO you will need to learn to do it manually for example if a customer want to engrave something which appear in the colored photo, but disappear with all the "Auto" function in B&W, you will need to know how to make it appears when it becomes B&W.
I would recommend you to learn the "Levels" first (it's a simplest version of the Curves), the "Auto input levels" in that tools is exactly the same as the "Auto > White Balance..." I spoke above
2 quick links I found for a good start to learn "Levels":
https://patdavid.net/2011/07/getting-aro...ng-levels/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kFhN4T8uc

but its hard for my eyes to see the difference with greyscale so i cant always produce the best images for laser engraving.
You are no obliged to start with a B&W, personally I would do Levels in Colors then use the mono mixer (Colors > Desaturate > Mono Mixer...) or use any desaturate method that give a quick result I'd like AFTER adjusting the color,
Why? because your conversion in black and white will always depend about colors and darkness/lightness of these colors.
I love this tool -> Colors > Desaturate > Mono Mixer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SdjdPGb4B0
But it's me only, if you don't like it, in the Colors > Desaturate menu you have other tools to chose from Wink

Also when you have finished to adjust your B&W picture, you might want to take a look at this tool > Menu Colors > Threshold... If laser engraving is just made of black and white spots (no gray gradients), you might love this tool. But I do not have any idea what type of B&W you need to do laser engraving Wink

PERFECT!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

my laser does "greys" by varying the output power so it can do some shading. All images need to be B&W. the software that i apid for that the laser actually uses is called lightburn, and can do some pretty good image adjustments in it. However, having gimp or adobe is a plus. 

i can see colors really well, but my brain has a hard time seperating greys from eachother. greyscale has always been an issue with me, its almost a type of color blindness haha. Ill have to see if there is a way to do split view with B&W photos so i can see the greyscale image and color image next to eachother whilst i adjust levels or curves?

I will look at those links and continue to use these forums and next time ill edit or reword my starting posts not to sound so spammy haha
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#9
Ill have to see if there is a way to do split view with B&W photos so i can see the greyscale image and color image next to each other whilst i adjust levels or curves?

All the tools we've mentioned have a preview and split-view options.
The preview and splitview are always at the same place -> at the bottom of the tool dialog
And... Yes you can move the line which split the view Big Grin
   
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#10
(07-24-2021, 07:59 AM)PixLab Wrote: Ill have to see if there is a way to do split view with B&W photos so i can see the greyscale image and color image next to each other whilst i adjust levels or curves?

All the tools we've mentioned have a preview and split-view options.
The preview and splitview are always at the same place -> at the bottom of the tool dialog
And... Yes you can move the line which split the view Big Grin

that actually might help my eyes alot then haha. this way i can see the correct adjustments.

right now im trying to learn what gamma, contrast, and brightness all have in common or actually do. I was told that with my specific laser, the image needs to have greys, not stark white and darks. 

thanks
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