Ryan, I think you guys talking about buffer issues, have nailed it. I’m convinced.
Shades of gray… opened ImageToGcode and created 3 quick files… changing only the travel and burn rates. I used 0.2mm resolution for all files… and 50mm/s, 25mm/s, and 20mm/s for the rates. Slowing the rates definitely darkened the image and did away with the “acceleration effects” we’ve been seeing.