Just a few tips here on engraving on wood with the LO-X7
First you need a very good photo with lots of contrast, for example a child in a yellow shirt playing in the grass on a sunny day has good contrast, a guy in a black shirt at night in the rain has poor contrast.
The photo has to be in the 10 to 24 mp range. No sense trying this with a 3 or 5 mp image from a cell phone.
HERE are my steps
Using Corel PAINTSHOP X7 Pro
STEP 1. Select a Photo with good contrast and that is above 10 megapixle and load into Corel Paintshop X7 pro
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STEP 2. Crop the image if needed
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STEP 3. remove any unwanted objects, I removed the background in this example
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STEP 4. Reduce the image colors to 2 in IMAGE - COLOR DEPTH 2. I Use the Stucki Dithering for best results but you be the judge
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STEP 5. Make sure all is good then export (SAVE AS) the image, give it a new name by adding -1 or something after so you don't overwrite the origional
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STEP 6. Import into LaserCAd and size to fit your wood, Try to keep the image as close to the origional size as possible to maintain contrast - if you shrink the image too much, the laser will not engrave the smaller dots and the shadowing and fine detail will be missed so you will end up with almost a vector image and you want it to appear greyscale.
You can zoom in to see the detail is still good
STEP 7. Adjust your burn settings, I use 100mm/s at 35% power ScanGap .05mm on a small K40 conversion with a 38.1mm Focal lense I got from this site. I recomend you jot it down somewhere like on the back of the wood you will be engraving.
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If you have RDWorks, you can save the settings as "Image on Pine" and just recall it next time, since LaserCAD does not have this feature. Maybe some day the ability to keep a library of engrave and cut settings will be added to LaserCAD...
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VOILA!