I have been trying to apply pictures to wood surface using photo-vcarve but was not too happy with the results in terms of detail and recognizability. Recently I made an experiment using a height map relief derived from a picture and filled it in with very lightly pigmented epoxy resin so that the deep carvings appeared dark end the shallow ones light. Kind of a lithophane but with diffuse reflection instead of translucency. Apologies if that is old hat but I have not seen that.
It was easy to do and it does look a bit like a real vintage photograph with a slight 3d-effect. However, since I used black mica based pigment, it came out somewhat cloudy and it glitters in the sun. For my next experiment I ordered laser printer toner powder and maybe also try a color picture. The latter would require four subsequent carvings for black, cyan, magenta and yellow and I am not sure if I can pull that off.
Original, potrait of James Stewart:
Maple board after carving. I did spray it with flat white enamel before epoxy filling.
After filling with epoxy resin (with a pinch of black pigment), ROS sanding to 400 grit and laquer spray.
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