@Damian_Trejtowicz read my first replay :). Don’t give up just change the environment, try other materials and compare
@Damian_Trejtowicz when I get home I will have a go at touching up the photo for you… I see a few things that you could do to make the image you posted work better
Can you post the engraving results you achieved ?
@Damian_Trejtowicz most of my grayscale engraves look like this after i get done editing them. you have to remove dark background. adjust brightness and contrast touch up some dark spots smooth light to dark transitions in faces and dodge the saturation around features you want to emphasize on the face
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B338aPM_B6R1TDFJYXk4a3kzdUE/view?usp=sharing
I will add to take note of your acceleration settings. If you get too high the transition between directions will start to get jumpy and miss steps. I was having that issue and thought it was hardware until I backed down on the acceleration and everything cleared right up. Each machine will handle this differently depending on your steppers, current settings, etc…