Raster Engraving

Raster engraving is a standard engraving process but being standard doesn’t make it run of the mill.

There are many reasons why this is the go-to technique for your engraving needs – it’s fast, efficient and accurate, able to replicate multiple exact copies of the same design without the need for mechanical cutting tools, and can be used with a wide variety of materials.

 

What is raster engraving?

Like a vector, raster is a type of bitmap file made up of pixels. When we raster engrave the laser moves line by line, point by point, from start to finish in much the same way as an inkjet printer moves to put ink on a page.

The difference here is that the targeted heat from the laser vaporises tiny surface amounts of the material being engraved, one pixel at a time, to leave behind a perfectly etched design.

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Perfectly replicates the original design on your chosen item

Raster engraving doesn’t suffer the limitations of mechanical cutting tools. This means that we can create designs of all shapes and sizes on all kinds of surfaces, including curved surfaces or inside an item.

As the laser equipment is computer-controlled, the final design perfectly mirrors your original, right down to the last pixel. It can even be duplicated multiple times without any compromise in quality or accuracy.

You will be amazed by the shading we can accomplish, simply because the laser is able to work to different depths and can translate greyscale images onto your chosen materials as well as black and white images.

There’s no contact between the tool itself and the item being engraved, which ensures that every mark is intentional and offers amazing clarity without leaving unwanted marks.

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Raster engraving works on virtually any material

Another fantastic feature of raster engraving is that it works well on virtually any material including wood, acrylic, leather, laminates, MDF, cork, paper, ceramics, coated metals and textiles.

Just talk to us about your raster engraving needs and we’ll be happy to turn your ideas into a finished design on the material/item of your choice. If you’re not sure what design or material would work best, just tell us and we can offer you advice that fits your budget.

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Need help with the design?

As raster images are made up of pixels, it’s important to get the resolution right to ensure that the finished engraving looks perfect at its intended size. We have a design team who can create the artwork for you (the price for this will be given as part of your requested quote) or you can find our artwork guidelines here if you already have a file you want to submit.

Raster engraving is particularly suited to large-area applications like filled letters, images, stamps or wood engraving but can be used for other projects too.

This is an engraving method suited to bold artwork with less fine detail (if you have lots of detail within your design, vector engraving might be more suitable or a combination of raster and vector engraving). Again, this is something we can help you to decide.