Pictures in wood

[myshop1044]

I have been ask to do a picture in wood for an extended family member. It has been a very long while since I did one.
I visited the Tips and Tricks and the process seems fairly simple. Ed Baker stated he did the sample in 1/2" Birch plywood.
I had never seen it done like that. At the conference a while back they were all done in hard woods.
Ed stated he set his depth to .085 so it only go thru the first layer of plywood. The pattern was set at .250.
My question to any old wood picture carvers , does the depth make that much difference in the picture outcome?
If I use some Alder ,tight grain, would the depth be better light or deep.
Attach is the picture sent to me and the mpc, the picture shows some lines running across the face and so does the pattern.
Should I try and get a better picture?
my setting on the mpc is, Bit Opti=BEST and Best on the speed.
any advice would be great.
Perry B.

[gwhiz]

It looks like that picture was taken through a screen door. I'd get a better picture if you can. You might be able to improve it by adding some blur, but a better quality photo would be best.

[gwhiz]

A little Gaussian Blur improves it a lot if you can't get a better picture. You'll likely need to blur it anyway to smooth it out.

[oscarl48]

Perry, you have more experience at this than I do but I have yet to find a perfect way to convert pictures to good wood carving patterns (lithos aside).

I took the image and desaturated it, applied skin smoothing filter, played with the color curve to reduce the range of gray scale, a little Gaussian blur and then removed background.

[DickB]

I haven't actually used Ed's technique, but I'd say it is closer to painting than carving.

The image produced and that which you see is due to the stain applied. He is using a very shallow carving to create a surface that will hold more gel stain in the darker areas and less to none in the lighter areas (notice sandpaper is used which can remove most or all of the stain in areas). It is this variance in stain that is producing the image, as if you had painted heavy and light areas of stain with a brush. This is different from most carvings, where stain is applied more or less evenly, and the image results from the shadows and shapes carved into the wood. If using his technique, I would follow his directions religiously. He notes that by just carving into the second plywood layer across the grain he obtained a good surface to accept the stain in these deeper, darker areas. So with his method I would stick with plywood. Also note the use of gel stain. This is a thicker stain which will congregate more in the deeper areas to produce a darker color.

There are other techniques for carving from photos, and the steps and recommendations for those techniques will be different. Ed's is a unique technique and I would suggest following his recipe precisely.

[myshop1044]

Thanks for all the replys, will look into a better picture, the 2patterns look very good too.

[myshop1044]

George did you get my PM

[tonydrew]

Excuse my cutting in here, but you did some great work on the photo. Using Photoshop is a challenge for me, but I keep after it. How do you remove background? I've tried a number of times and just don't find the correct tool.

[SteveNelson46]

Excuse my cutting in here, but you did some great work on the photo. Using Photoshop is a challenge for me, but I keep after it. How do you remove background? I've tried a number of times and just don't find the correct tool.

In Photoshop, use the magic eraser tool and click on the parts of the photo that you want to change. The magic eraser tool is in the eraser pull-down group.

[tonydrew]

Thanks. I've done that before to clean up jpg's, but in this case the person has lots of curly hair so it's going to take a little time and patience to run in and out of the curls. It will work.