User guide

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User Guide
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User Manual
Step 2: Using text to set the CONTRAST parameter.
Type in a random line of text, using the Times New Roman font, set at 8 or 10 points in size. Make sure
that the text string is at least 6 inches long and that the string includes punctuation marks, spaces and
lower and upper case letters as in the following example:
Universal Laser Systems, Inc. produces the “BEST” laser systems in the world!
Engrave the sample text with the settings determined in step 1, but this time ENABLE Image
Enhancement and set CONTRAST to 0, DEFINITION to 0, DENSITY to 100 and the TUNING value to +4. You
should expect the results to appear fuzzy, some of the characters will be missing and overall engraving
quality will not be as good as expected. This is normal. Move the line of text slightly downward in your
graphics software so that you will engrave a clean part of the material, but keep it close enough to the
previous engraving so that you have something to compare it to. Keep engraving samples and
adjusting the CONTRAST upward in increments of 5 and note the results. The objective is to adjust the
CONTRAST just enough to cause the high density areas of the text to be sharp and clear. Ignore the
appearance of the ascenders (like quotation marks or the tops of h’s) and descenders (like commas or
the bottom of lower case p’s) as they will appear faint and unclear. This is to be expected. DO NOT
adjust the CONTRAST setting to try to force these to appear; use the DEFINITION adjustment for those
characters. Right now, ONLY concentrate on the high density part of the characters. Setting CONTRAST
too high can cause the characters to appear “fat” or “bold.” Adjusting the CONTRAST by just one number
can make a big dierence in appearance, so continue adjusting the setting by rst increasing by 5 points
until you get close, but then ne tune the setting by increasing or decreasing by 1 point until the exact
setting is achieved.
Step 3: Adjusting DEFINITION to enhance the ascenders and descenders.
Now, increase the DEFINITION in increments of 5 at a time until the ascenders, descenders, commas,
quotation marks and any other low density area characters begin to appear. The objective is to increase
the setting just enough to cause these parts of the graphic to match the appearance of the high density
areas. Setting the DEFINITION too high will result in ascenders and descenders appearing too “fat” or “bold”
compared to the rest of the graphic.
Step 4: Reducing DENSITY as needed.
Once CONTRAST and DEFINITION have been set to the appropriate levels, the graphic may or may not
appear to be “fat” or “bold.” In most cases, the appearance will look great without making any more
adjustments. However, if everything appears overpowered or bold, try reducing the DENSITY down from
100 in increments of 5 and note the results. If the characters begin appear to be “chunky” or appear as if
pixels have been eliminated, then you have reduced it too much. Normally you can leave the DENSITY at
100. However, there may be cases where you need to reduce it. Reducing DENSITY can be very useful when
the image is inverted, such as white text with a black background. In this case, if the engraved area (the
background) is overpowering the text (foreground), then reducing the DENSITY may help thicken the text.
Step 5: Fine tuning the raster strokes.
At this point, you are nished with Image Enhancements. Make sure that you save your settings, but your
graphic may need a little more “ne tuning.” The typical TUNING setting is +4 when Image Enhancement
is enabled. However, this may or may not be the best setting for your system. To check this setting, you
should perform this last test. Engrave the same text with all your Image Enhancement settings, but this
time set the TUNING value to 0. Then move the graphic down and engrave it again with TUNING setting
+1, then +2 and so on all the way to +8. Compare each one to the other and nd the one that is the
sharpest and clearest. Go back and set the TUNING value to the appropriate number and SAVE your settings
once again.
The Image Enhancement settings for that material are now complete. If you feel that you can ne tune it a
little more, go back to step 2 and try again, but this time start with the current Image Enhancement
settings that you saved. It is not necessary to reset your nominal power setting and we recommend that
you leave it the same as the value you determined in step 1.
Setting the Image Enhancement parameters using this procedure will cause all of your graphics, whether
big or small, inverted or not, dense or highly detailed, to appear better than ever. We suggest that you run