Raised letters on an engraved field look premium on wood and leather. The trick is a negative — here are the two ways to build one.
Reviewed by the Vextrify team, tested in our own laser workshops · Updated · How we test
Try Vextrify freeIf your design is an image, invert it: what was black becomes white and is no longer engraved, and the former white background is now engraved. If your design is vector artwork, draw a filled rectangle or shape behind the text and subtract the letters from it, so the fill covers everything except the letters. Both give raised text on an engraved field.
In Vextrify's Photo Studio the Invert control swaps light and dark in the result. Check the preview: the area you want to keep must be white, because white is not engraved. Thin fonts become fragile when everything around them is removed, so choose a bolder font or a slightly larger size than for normal engraving.
Convert the text to outlines, place a filled shape behind it and subtract the letters, so the counters of letters like O and A stay as islands. Vextrify's Contour tool creates outlines around text and shapes as SVG, which you can use as the boundary of the engraved field or as a cut line around the piece.
Leave a margin of a few millimetres between the letters and the edge of the field, and give the field a defined border so the engraving does not fade into the material. On dark-burning woods the contrast is strong; on light leather, test once on scrap. Settings for the large fill come from your own test grid.
Turn the design into a negative: invert an image, or for vector artwork cut the letters out of a filled shape so the fill engraves everything except the letters.
Thin fonts become fragile when everything around them is removed. Use a bolder font or a larger size and test once on scrap.
Yes. Any image can be inverted so the logo stays and the surrounding area is engraved.