Tips on How to Display Your Photo Crystal

Just want to share a few tips on how to display your photo crystal and make image inside more visible.

First, you can place the photo crystal piece against a darker background. It does not mean that you make the whole room darker. I put same piece of photo crystal in two different places. As you can see from these two images, in the one sitting against dark windows frame stud of my office, the image appears more visible; the other sitting on top of window stud you hardly see anything inside crystal.

The other thing you may try is to turn the crystal so that lights can shine through crystal from the sides, instead of front or back. Focused lights come through sides of crystal block get reflected by millions of dots inside of crystal, then captured by your eye. Those image dots you may not see otherwise if the lights shine through image from the front or back of photo crystal. People put crystal on top of light based for the same reason.

Some people told me that they still can not see the image clearly after adopted both tips above. My suggestion then is that you talk to your photo crystal vendor and make sure it is not engraving quality issue, which can be caused either by poor original photo resolution, or poor “laser blast resolution” – number of points per square millimeter blasted by laser bean is too less. I discussed this in my Feb 18^th posting.

How laser-photo-crystal is made?

Image in laser-etched-photo-crystal is created by the focused laser beam “burning” inside crystal. It creates millions of microfracture points to form an image. The conical beam, with a focal length of about 2"-3", shines into the glass without damaging it, except at the focal point where the image is located.

At that one focal point, concentrated energy heats the glass to the cracking point, causing a minor "burn", or fracture which is the element of image. To draw more cracking points and form a complete image, the computer controlled motor moves the laser beam to different places inside crystal. Laser beam is on and off (pulse) during the process. A typical image will consist of hundred thousand points depending image size and accuracy.

The current laser technology used in engraving machine allows the "burn" speed of 1000 points to 2000 points per second. The engraving time depends on many factors, such as image brightness and contrast, size of crystal, and "burn" size.

Why the laser etched picture is too light inside crystal?

When your received your order from the “photo crystal” vendor, you find sometimes that the image was too “light” or “vague” inside. What caused the problem?

The first thing I would do is to go back to your desk and check the image quality that you sent to photo crystal vendor. 90% of the times you would find out the image may not be “clear” at the first place. Meaning the resolution is too small ( less than 100dpi)

If the image looks all good, the next step is to check with vendor. It may cause either by not having enough “points” for the image during image converting process (from your normal jpg or tiff file to machine readable format), or by weak power of laser beam to blast “dots” inside glass. The picture inside crystal that you see, is actually consisted of millions of “point”, or laser blasted dot, that created by laser engraving machine. If number of the points is less than needed to represent the clear, it will be too “light”. If the laser power is not strong enough to blast enough points, it will create a “weak” image too.

How to tell the quality of crystal?

High quality crystal should have good clarity and smooth surface.

A piece of fine crystal has good clarity and the ability to reflect light. Although nowadays the majority of the commercial crystals are man-made (also known as Optical Crystal), the clarity should not be compromised. In fact, with today’s technology and precision processing, the man-made crystal should have better purity than natural crystal. The optical crystals allow the light to reflect through the crystal when it is put in direct sunlight.

Besides superior clarity, the crystal should also have no surface scratches. The scratches usually happen in the polishing or finishing process. Sometimes scratches are caused by improper handling.

3D Laser Color Photo Crystals

The so called “3D color photo in crystal” or “3D color picture in glass” generated a lot of buzz recently. Some even called it “revolutionary” technology. In fact, the laser engraving working process is nothing special, just the crystal or optical glass material is different, meaning the chemical ingredient is different than the “normal” crystal material.

I have seen a few samples from China or US based companies, as far as I can tell, this "Coloring" technology is not stable yet, mainly because the crystal material is not as clear as lead K9 crystal (K9 is the buzz word for high quality crystal). Sometimes you will also find the color difference or unevenness. The color is kind of "dull". Overall I don't think it worth the money (usually it is more expensive than "black and white" photo crystal)

Why Do I Need a Lighted Base For Crytal Art?

A light base gives your photo crystal and other art pieces a new life. It will emphasize the engraved image inside and the design of your crystal. The attention drawn to your photo crystal will enhance it's own beauty and attraction.

When choosing the light base, you need to match the light base size and shape with your crystal. For example, if you have a crystal block with less 4” width each side, the 4” rotary light base will be the best choice.