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As I’m getting older, it seems like gift giving is so much harder! I don’t want to just give something to give. I want my gifts to be meaningful and special. When I first saw pictures of handwritten recipes on cutting boards, I just had to learn how to do that. And the results did not disappoint! The hand written engraved recipes have by far been the most sentimental gifts I have given. If tears are involved, then I know I’ve done my job well! I’m going to walk you through how to prepare a recipe to be engraved using Adobe Photoshop.

What you’ll need:

1. Adobe Photoshop
2. Glowforge

Steps:

1. First we need to upload the recipe into Photoshop. 
2. Crop the image so there is no extra background. 
3. Now make the image into black and white. 
4. Next we will adjust the levels of the black and white. Our goal is to make the white areas whiter and the black areas darker. 
5. You’ll go to: Image>Adjustments>Levels. From here there should be a pop up screen. On the new pop up you should see some dropper icons that are black, gray, and white. 
6. You may need to play around with how the droppers affect the image. If you don’t like something that you did, you can press “CTRL+Z” 
7. First click the white dropper. Find a white spot on the image and click. The background should have gotten whiter. 
8. Now click the black dropper. Click on a letter from the recipe. Your recipe should have gotten darker. 
9. Keep using both the black and white dropper icons to adjust the levels until you are happy with the results. 
10. See video for how I adjust the levels. 
11. If you need more help with this step, see the video for step by step instructions.
12. Now hopefully that cleaned up most of the recipe. If you need to go farther, you can erase any areas that still look messy. 
13. Click on the eraser button. You can adjust the size of the eraser and zoom in and out as necessary. Erase any spots on the recipe that you don’t like. 
14. Your recipe should be good to go! You can upload the picture straight into the Gowforge app. 
15. Settings of the engrave will depend on your material. 
16. I try to do a sample engrave on a scrap piece of wood before to make sure I have my setting right. 

If there’s one thing that I love about the Glowforge, it’s that the projects are endless. These handwritten recipes are such a great way to permanently save a part of your family. 

 Interested in getting a Glowforge? If you use this link, you will get a discount and I will get a compensation at no cost to you. Also make sure to check out my blog on 10 Things You Should Know About Getting a Glowforge!