Critique Request progress on first crack at gun engraving

[TFACARVING]

So as of right now im 2 days into this little personal project. It is a CVA colt pocket police in 36 Cal. it is a percussion gun, and yes it is loaded and has been for the past 6 years. I don't work on it with the cylinder in and once I get to engraving on the cylinder I will clear it before doing so. So far I've just done the brass which is nothing like brass practice plates. This brass is far inferior and harshly brittle which is making the project kind of difficult. I'm assuming it is because these frames are sandcasted and not milled out of a solid piece. As per the usual I am open to criticism and any tips are welcome my total engraving time as far as my experience is somewhere at about 70 hours total spread out over the past year.

 

[TFACARVING]

I realise my pics came out fuzzy so here are some others

 

[John B.]

The pictures of the frame sides look good.
The engraving looks appropriate to the pistols time period.
Unfortunately most of the other photographs are not good and it's hard to give a fair critique.
See if you can get some better pictures.

 

[TFACARVING]

The pictures of the frame sides look good.
The engraving looks appropriate to the pistols time period.
Unfortunately most of the other photographs are not good and it's hard to give a fair critique.
See if you can get some better pictures.

Yeah the server is being tricky my camera takes too much detail and the server can't handle the picture size so I screen shot them but when they upload they are all fuzzy i will try to figure something out

 

[SamW]

What camera and do you have an editing program such as Photoshop Elements?

 

[TFACARVING]

What camera and do you have an editing program such as Photoshop Elements?

My phone takes 48mp photos but even cranked down to 12mp the picture size is like 5mb and I get an eror message that says the server cannot handle files that large as far as editing programs I have PicsArt why do you ask?

 

[John B.]

My phone takes 48mp photos but even cranked down to 12mp the picture size is like 5mb and I get an eror message that says the server cannot handle files that large as far as editing programs I have PicsArt why do you ask?

Sam is a great gentleman and expert photographer and can maybe help you to size them.
Give him an ear.

 

[DKanger]

This brass is far inferior and harshly brittle

It's not brass, it's cast bronze, hence your problems.

As far as picture resolution, it doesn't show too much detail, it's just too damn big. You need a software program that allows you to select a section of your picture with a bounding box. Once selected, you copy the box and paste it as a new image. Then you resize the image so it's about 1200 pixels wide and proportionately long. Most programs allow you to keep the same aspect ration. Then save it as a .jpg file. There are freeware programs which allow you to do this. There is no need to show your kitchen table, your hands, and the wallpaper on the walls. Just show the subject matter you are trying to portray.

 

[SamW]

When posting photos to this site I resize to 6 inches largest dimension and a resolution of about 120 pixels per inch (150 in this case because it is narrow) which gives file sizes in a usable range of under 400kb when saved as a jpeg. The file size is variable in the PS Elements software. Example reduced from 3.68 MB to 294 kb.

As DKanger says, crop out useless portions of the photo.

 

[TFACARVING]

Maybe these are better?

 

[SamW]

Much better...diffused lighting would make them really pop. Here is what I use, hanging below a 4 ft. light fixture...2 coat hangers held apart with wood dowels and covered with freezer paper. Hanging over my vise. Cheap but very effective.

 

[TFACARVING]

Here are some more progress pictures of the other side and the backstrap