Is Photo Studio better than Imag-R?

It does more. Imag-R prepares photos properly, but it works as a service: upload, per-image billing, and the settings stop where the service decides. Photo Studio brings 64 controls across ten working areas, twelve material profiles, ten dot patterns plus greyscale — and you build your own recipes that work on your laser. All of it runs locally, with no upload and no per-image billing.

Can I build my own recipes for my laser?

Yes. Surface, image type, goal and every fine setting are saved together as a named recipe. On the next order with the same material it is one click — and through batch processing the same recipe runs across hundreds of images.

Why do my photo engravings look muddy?

Usually because the light areas are not truly white and still burn. In Vextrify white areas of the source stay untouched: measured across 168 material and goal combinations, zero burned dots, where a brightness of 248 out of 255 otherwise leaves about 2.6 percent of the area burning.

Alle functies

Photo Studio

Zet foto's om in scherpe, graveerbare afbeeldingen.

Materiaalbewuste fotoverwerking met portretlogica, tooncontrole, puntstructuur en recepten. Vergelijk voor en na naast elkaar of met een loep, vind elk van de 64 instellingen via zoeken en exporteer laserklare afbeeldingen.

Desktop downloaden Studio openen

Beschikbaar op macOS, Windows & Linux

Wat je krijgt

Twaalf materiaalprofielen, tien ditherpatronen plus grijswaarden, en een schone lijntekeningmodus
Vergelijken, naast elkaar en loep — alle 64 instellingen in tien doorzoekbare groepen
Recepten met live referentiebeelden — één keer afstellen, altijd herhalen

Why Photo Studio instead of what you know?

Image-prep services such as Imag-R prepare photos for engraving and do it properly — but every image goes through someone else's server, gets billed, and the settings stop where the service decides they stop.

Photo Studio is not a filter with three sliders. It is an image lab that knows your material — and everything you work out stays with you.

Sixty-four controls in ten searchable groups: tones, dot structure, clarity, shadow lift, contrast window, material limits — not three presets. Compare, side by side and loupe show the result before you engrave.
Recipes you build yourself: surface, image type, goal and every fine setting saved together, named, reusable. What worked on your laser is one click on the next order.
Twelve material profiles from birch to anodised aluminium, ten dot patterns and greyscale power modulation.
Runs locally: customer photos are not uploaded, there is no per-image billing, and the result goes straight to the machine or out as a file for LightBurn and EZCAD.

Everything in Photo Studio

Every function, every effect — 78 controls.

Load an image

The starting point for every edit — a source photo in the Original preview pane.

Upload image: Opens the file picker to choose a photo from the device.
Drag and drop a file: On desktop, an image file can be dropped directly onto the window to load it.
Original: Shows the unedited source image next to the laser output for comparison.

Recipe Builder — surface, image type, goal

The three foundational choices the engine uses to derive matching tone, sharpness, and dot-pattern starting values. Changing any of them resets the pro controls to material- and goal-specific defaults.

Surface: Selects the workpiece material: light birch, dark walnut, dark slate, clear glass, frosted glass, clear acrylic, dark/coloured acrylic, light plastic, dark plastic, anodized aluminum, stainless steel, or leather. Metal also works on diode lasers; surfaces that engrave light on dark are inverted automatically ("Engraves light on dark · inverted"). Automatically determines whether CO2 or fiber laser behavior is used, plus brightness, contrast, and gamma starting values.
Image type: Describes the structure of the source image: Photo (tonal gradation, skin tones protected) or Line Art (hard black/white edge, no skin protection; closed, rounded lines, computed locally). Controls how much skin tones are protected, edges are sharpened, and local contrast is emphasized.
Goal: Sets the engraving character: Balanced (calm, material-safe default), Deep Black Engraving (high contrast, strong black), FineTrace Deep (dense, high-detail contour), Micro Detail (ultra-fine texture), Soft Photo (gentle gradient), or Hard Marking (technical, threshold-like sharpness).
Recipe summary: Shows the current combination of surface, image type, and goal as a compact status line.

Recipes — save, load, custom labels

A recipe stores processing decisions only (surface, image type, goal, pro controls, image preparation, production and export values) — never the image itself. Full management with import/export lives under "Manage recipes".

Recipe name: Free-text name for the current recipe, e.g. "Stainless portrait fine".
Save recipe / Update recipe: Saves the current settings under the entered name, or overwrites the loaded recipe.
Save as new recipe: Stores the current settings under a new, unique name without changing the loaded recipe.
Custom names (surface / image type / goal): Optional, freely chosen display names for this recipe — useful for an internal customer-specific material name instead of the default label.
Load recipe: Loads a saved recipe including all controls, image preparation, production, and export values.
Reference images: In the recipe tool you see a bright portrait, a dark portrait and optionally your own image live — every change shows up right away. Click to enlarge.
Manage recipes: Opens the full recipe manager (list, rename, delete, import/export) at /app/profiles.

Jobs — quick-saving a work state

A job stores production state: source image, processed result, the linked recipe, and export history.

Job name: Free-text name for the saved work state, e.g. "customer photo stainless".
Save job: Stores the source image, current laser output, and the recipe used as a reloadable job.
Manage: Opens the full job/project manager at /app/projects.

Production & Export

These values are saved with the recipe and written directly into LightBurn and EZCAD packages — keeping speed, power, and dot pattern consistent between Photo Studio and the machine software.

Speed: Preview travel speed used for the export package.
Max Power: Upper power limit applied to export packages and the dot-pattern preview.
Min Power: Lower power limit for the grayscale-PWM preview and export.
Passes: Number of engraving passes written into the export package.
Line interval: Spacing between engraving lines; can be linked to DPI (see "Link DPI with line interval").
Frequency: Pulse frequency for fiber-laser export packages.
Air Assist: Turns the air-assist flag in the export package on or off.
LightBurn dot pattern: Chooses which dithering method (Stucki, Jarvis, Floyd, Atkinson, Threshold, or None) is recorded in the LightBurn export.
Default export target: Sets the preselected target format: Vextrify project, LightBurn, EZCAD, or Generic.
Include PNG / SVG / LightBurn project / parameter JSON / readme / EZCAD notes: Six toggles controlling which extra files the export package contains.

All settings — 64 controls in 10 groups

"All settings" holds every control in ten groups: Light & contrast, Details & sharpness, Noise & areas, Tone levels, Dot pattern, Face & background, Size & resolution, Laser values for export, Recipe & project and Export files.

Search controls: The search field finds a control directly, e.g. "Gamma".
Only changed: Shows only the controls that differ from the starting values; a dot marks changed controls.
Pro: open all / close all: Opens or closes all groups. Double-click a control to reset it.
"Clear" look: Calmer skin, lighter mid-tones, clearer eyes; uses a fine stipple dither and tone per image region.

Pro controls — engraving tone engine

The main controls shaping the engraving result. Every change auto-updates the laser-output preview after a short delay — "Start processing" stays available for an immediate, full recalculation.

Automatic tone guidance: Lets the engine adapt tone values to material and goal automatically instead of forcing fixed values.
Depth point / Light point: Sets the darkest and lightest tone value still treated as pure black or white.
Black strength: Increases how aggressively dark areas are pushed toward pure black.
White calm: Smooths bright areas so they look calmer and more even.
Tone separation: Controls how distinctly neighboring gray values stand apart from each other.
Brightness: Raises or lowers the overall tonal range of the image.
Contrast: Spreads or compresses the gap between light and dark areas.
Local contrast: Emphasizes fine structural differences within image regions without changing overall contrast.
Sharpness / edges: Emphasizes edge transitions so contours engrave more clearly.
Dot density: Affects how densely engraving dots are placed within the dot pattern.
Dot size: Changes the perceived size of individual engraving dots.
Dot resolution: Increases the internal subpixel resolution of the dot pattern for finer transitions.
Material compensation: Compensates the chosen material's typical dot gain so the result isn't too strong or too weak.
Threshold: Sets the cutover point for pure black/white threshold mode.
Gamma: Shifts the tone curve non-linearly to lighten or darken midtones.
Shadow control: Selectively lightens or deepens the darkest image areas without shifting the rest of the tone range.
Highlight protection: Prevents very bright areas from losing their detail during engraving.
Expand radius / Increase effect / Calm fine noise: Three controls for fine detail enhancement: effect radius, strength of the detail boost, and calming of image noise.
DPI: Sets the output resolution in dots per inch.
Output size mm: Physical width of the engraving output in millimeters.
Link DPI with line interval: Links DPI and line spacing so changing one automatically updates the other.
Dot pattern: Chooses one of ten dot patterns plus grayscale for converting tones into engraving dots: Threshold, Ordered, Floyd-Steinberg, Jarvis, Stucki, Atkinson, Halftone, Newsprint, Sketch, or Blue Noise (organic dot pattern), or grayscale without a dot pattern. The same choice carries over when sending the image back to Laser Control.
Invert: Swaps light and dark in the result — e.g. for negative engraving on transparent materials.

Image preparation — Vision Engine

Fine-tunes the engraving signature before the image is converted into a dot pattern, without exposing internal processing stages.

Vision Engine: Auto, Active, or Off — controls whether subject-aware image analysis for portraits triggers automatically, is forced on, or is disabled. Protects eyes, lips, hair, and contours, and calms skin and background locally.
Image calm: Reduces visible compression and sensor artifacts in the source image.
Detail protection: Preserves fine structures from smoothing, such as hair strands or fabric patterns.
Surface balance: Smooths large, even areas like backgrounds without blurring edges.
Structure control: Controls how strongly fine image structures are emphasized before the dot pattern is applied.
Fine drawing: Adds or reduces extra fine texture depending on the desired material look.
Precision radius / Edge precision / Fine filter: Three controls for edge sharpening: effect radius, strength, and a threshold below which weak edges are ignored.
Tone guidance: Controls how strongly the automatic tone curve affects midtones.
Depth guidance / Light guidance: Two additional controls that selectively adjust the darkest or lightest image areas before the dot pattern is applied.

Laser output preview

The central preview pane — shows exactly what the laser will engrave, not just an on-screen approximation.

Start processing: Recalculates the laser output immediately and in full, independent of the automatic live preview.
Result / Compare / Side by side: Three views on the canvas: the laser result only, a slider between original and result, or both images next to each other. Hold Space to see the original briefly.
Loupe: Shows the real laser dots at 1:1 (key L).
Enlarge: Switches to zoom mode: a large full-view preview with mouse-wheel zoom and click-drag panning.
1:1: In zoom mode: shows the preview at true pixel resolution (no browser scaling, so the dot pattern isn't blurred).
Reset: Resets zoom level and pan position in zoom mode.
Back / Esc: Exits zoom mode.

Export

Multiple export paths for different target systems — all built from the same processed laser output.

Export PNG: Downloads the processed image as a PNG file.
SVG Vector: Exports the current result as a threshold vector SVG, e.g. for vector-cutting workflows.
Vextrify Project: Downloads a complete production package in Vextrify format (PNG, parameters, readme).
LightBurn ZIP: Downloads a package with PNG, SVG, LBRN2 project file, parameter JSON, readme, and bridge manifest for LightBurn.
EZCAD package: Downloads raster/vector data plus operator notes (speed, power, frequency, passes) for EZCAD-driven fiber lasers.
Open Batch: Jumps to batch processing at /app/batch to apply the same recipe to multiple images.

Returning to Laser Control / Artboard

When Photo Studio is opened from Laser Control or the Artboard (edit image), this bar appears at the top. Editing stays non-destructive — the source image, recipe, and result remain linked for later re-editing.

← Back: Returns to the original image object without applying any changes.
Apply & back: Sends the finished, processed image and the chosen dot pattern back to the original object, preserving placement, scale, rotation, layer, color, and min/max power. Only enabled once the image has been processed.

Full function reference

Frequently asked

Is Photo Studio better than Imag-R?: It does more. Imag-R prepares photos properly, but it works as a service: upload, per-image billing, and the settings stop where the service decides. Photo Studio brings 64 controls across ten working areas, twelve material profiles, ten dot patterns plus greyscale — and you build your own recipes that work on your laser. All of it runs locally, with no upload and no per-image billing.
Can I build my own recipes for my laser?: Yes. Surface, image type, goal and every fine setting are saved together as a named recipe. On the next order with the same material it is one click — and through batch processing the same recipe runs across hundreds of images.
Why do my photo engravings look muddy?: Usually because the light areas are not truly white and still burn. In Vextrify white areas of the source stay untouched: measured across 168 material and goal combinations, zero burned dots, where a brightness of 248 out of 255 otherwise leaves about 2.6 percent of the area burning.

Functies

3D Relief Studio

Bereid 2,5D- en diepgraveerojobs lokaal voor: laad dieptekaarten, verminder banding, kies een materiaalstrategie en exporteer een productiepakket — geen 3D-software nodig.

Productie-artboard

Plaats afbeeldingen, tekst, QR en SVG op één exporteerbaar artboard met precieze mm-afmetingen, werkstukmaskers en een echte laserklare opmaak.

Laserbesturing

Een echt bedieningsoppervlak, niet alleen een bestand. Verbind via USB of netwerk, laat de camera elk werkstuk op het bed vinden en je ontwerp op elk ervan plaatsen, kader en doe een droogloop, en voer dan de job uit — op diode-, CO2- en fiber-galvolasers. LightBurn-projecten, materiaalbibliotheken en apparaatbestanden openen direct.