Pin-ups, Shave Brushes and Lasers

We had a customer who wanted a pin-up on a shave brush. Which, by the way, is about the coolest idea.  At first, we thought it was going to be easier than it was.

 

We had a picture that seemed simple enough, a lovely lady in a beach repose.

 

What we did not realize at the time, was the simple workings of the laser.  In what we consider black and white pictures, what we see is actually is black  spot, white the absence of the  and a half tone of black.  In order to get gray, the space for black is only half filled with the area that would normally be a dot.  So, a half dot.

 

A half dot.  That was the crux of the problem.  A point of heat at the end of the laser is on or off.  Laser land refers to this as a binary system.  Just like all those 11111 and 0000 of binary code in the fledgling days of computers. 

Simply, there are no half dots. No half dots for me, the picture, the lady and no half dots for her new owner. 

There were, seemingly, an endless amount of versions. To tweek and tweek again the  picture to fool the laser to apply a dots that show our pinup lady.

 

This was the last flat version.  She is there with her towel and hours spent on making her hair work out properly.  I had no idea what a delightful challenge this would be.  The best part was the final burn of the image and finishing the shave brush.