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The Three Basic Image Requirements
This information is provided to assist you in
selecting the best image for your engraving. The
first three topics below are the most pertinent. This
is really valuable information if you are going to
have a picture engraved.
Photo Quality:
Is your digital photo/ image grainy or distorted?
Read here about checking your
image quality
Does your picture have a dark background?
Read here about backgrounds
and shading
Digital images must be clean!
One of the most important things in achieving
a quality engraving is to start with photographs
that are good quality. This means pictures need to
be taken in good lighting and have good gradual
shading for the best laser engraving results. Aside
of image size and resolution, how you processed the
image is very important. Digital cameras and
scanners can produce great quality pictures for
laser engraving. But, saving an image with the wrong
settings can ruin the image quality. File
compression decreases the size of the file and will
definitely decrease the image quality too. The higher
the file compression, the smaller the file size and
the lower the image quality will be. It doesn’t take
much file compression to completely degrade image
quality. This is why we encourage not using any file
compression at all when saving your digital images
to a file. Also just as important, do not use
enhancement filters. Most graphic programs have a
“sharpening” filter that does not actually improve
image quality. Using filters to sharpen, clarify or
otherwise "improve" the image appearance may make an
image look better on your computer monitor but in
reality, you are losing actual image quality. It is
best that images are sent to us as you got them off
the scanner or camera so that we can process them
using the proper software and methods.
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Image Print Size: It matters!
Very important: For a quality engraving to be made,
digital photographs must be converted and processed
at 300 dpi with a print size that is equal to the
size of the engraving.
Whether your digital
photo is 72, 96 or even 150 dpi, we will convert it
to 300 dpi for the best engraving. Converting the
image will make its actual print size much smaller
than the original.
If your image is 72 dpi (most are), how big
will your picture be when it is printed at 300 dpi
and will it be the same size you want your engraving
to be?
Read here about how to determine your images print size by using our Comparison Chart.
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File types and size: Saving images to a file
If your digital photo file size is real small,
it is a good sign that it is a very small picture or
it was compressed when saved to an image file. High
quality digital images are high resolution images
and high resolution equates to a large file size. A
good .jpg file is usually around 700 kb in size and
a good .bmp or .tiff file can be as much as 2 - 10
megabits in size.
Digital images should be saved as a
.jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, .tiff, .psd, .cdr (version 12), .psp (verion 7) or .cpt (version 12) formats.
Do not use
any file compression when saving your image to a
file! The more you compress a digital image file the smaller the file size gets and the worst the image quality is. Check your settings when saving your digital images. Good quality image in = good quality engraving out.
Do not send images
placed in non graphic type files such as .doc (word
document), .pdf (Adobe Acrobat files), etc..
Such images are embedded at a low resolution which will not engrave well.
It is also best to maintain a 24 bit / pixel depth
for all images.
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Addition Information Menu:
Photographs of people ~ Black and white images ~ Laser engraving on wood
Laser engraving on black marble ~ Taking digital camera pictures
Scanning Images ~ Uploading or emailing images
Mailing us your photographs ~ Cropping photos / images
Images requiring additional graphics work
Options we provide for engraving layouts
Photographs of people:
Is your photo of a person? How large is their
face
in the photo?
The point here is simple. Lets
compare engraving a picture of a persons face that
is only 1 inch in print size vs. a persons face that is 4
inches in print size. Its all comes down to clarity of
details. The smaller image is the more the facial
details are consolidated into a very small area which decreases the
clarity of the engraving. Especially on wood
engravings, the eyes and other dark points will
engrave with very little detail resulting in the
"black dot" effect. Larger pictures can provide
incredible engraving results showing the finer
details and shading. We cannot enlarge your image without
loosing resolution quality.
Peoples skin tones alone can make a very big
difference on whether an image can be engraved or
not, especially in low lighting conditions. If
someone has dark skin, it is ever more important to
have very good lighting. It all comes down to
shading. The darker the skin tone and the lower the
lighting, the less definition there is for the laser
to be able to discern shades across the image. This
really goes for any image. If the tones or shades in
an image blend together, the more likely it will not
be engravable.
Images of people together that have a great
difference in skin tone will most likely not
be able to be engraved. As you read above, it can be
difficult enough to process an image of one person.
Adjusting the shades and image characteristics for
two people in the same image with a wide range of skin tone is almost
impossible in any case. The laser only knows how to
work with shading from black to white in grey scale.
So images must be taken using the proper lighting
providing very good gradual shading to the
subjects so that there is as much definition as
possible. This is key to a quality engraving.
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Black and white images: Logos and line art
This pertains to 2 color black & white images, not
photographs or gray scale images. Most black and
white images are small in file size than a color
picture of equal size. Though a clean black and
white image can be processed at as low as 72 dpi,
high resolution will result in a better quality
engraving. It is also best to
maintain a 24 bit / pixel depth when saving your
image to file. A 2 bit / pixel depth will result in jagged edges of artwork.
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Laser engraving on wood:
Read here about choosing the right wood for your engraving
Lighter woods like Alder are better
substrates for engraving photographs because they
provide greater contrast which means greater clarity
and detail.
A photograph laser engraved onto a dark wood
such as Walnut may lack definition because of the contrast between the dark
wood and the dark brown laser engraved area.
Line art, solid logos and text work very well
on dark woods such as Walnut.
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Laser engraving on black marble:
Our black marble selections all laser
engrave with photos very nicely.
Read here about submitting
images for black marble
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Taking digital camera pictures:
Most digital cameras give you one basic option which is the pixel resolution otherswise referred to as image size. Digital cameras should be set at 2048 x 1536 pixel count resolution or higher to result in good size engraving of approx. 8" x 5”. Some cameras will give you the ability to set the image quality (they may call it compression) For our application you should use the best quality setting. When pictures are extracted from a digital camera to your computer they do so at only 72 dpi resolution. Because of this, it is always best to use the highest possible pixel resolution. This will hopefully give us a large enough palette to be able to convert the image to a higher resolution 300 dpi image and still maintain an image size compatible to meet your application.
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Scanning Images:
If you are going to scan your picture, set the dpi resolution to 300 dpi. With scanned images, the size of the picture is the output size. So if your image is 5" x 4" than your out put image should be a 300 dpi - 5" x 4" engraved image (un-cropped).
Photographs that were printed on matt
finished paper may cause the scanned
image to be slightly "hazed". The
scanner can actually pickup on the
micro-dots on the papers surface. This
is very hard to detect in the scanned
image but, the engraved image may be
effected. Glossy photos seem to
provide the best result.
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Uploading or emailing us your photos / images:
You can
upload or email us your picture and we will take a look at it for you to determine its quality and estimated print size for engraving.
We will email you back with the results via a form notification. It is our goal to assist you with your personalized engraving and to create the best possible engraving using your images. If we see any problem with an image we will tell you our concerns. Almost any image can be engraved but, not every image will engrave
at all well. Remember, we can not make a poor quality image good - it's just not possible. We provide the information and links on this page to assist you in the best way
possible. If you can, verifying your images
attributes (size, resolution, etc.,) before you send them to us can be a real time saver and it will make your ordering process go much quicker.
Preferred maximum file size = 5 megabytes. This will determine the file format you chose to save your images in. Uncompressed .jpg files will be a better choice for
potentially very high resolution images due to their file size. If your file is larger than
5 Mb - PLEASE call us first. We do have a server limit and
we may need to clear it to accept your large image files. Please use the links provided on the order form for sending your images. These links will direct your uploaded images to the proper location on our server.
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Mailing us your photos/images:
The best choice for
the highest quality engraving.
Let QPB Laser
Services do the work for you. We will scan your
picture and process it it for the best possible
results.
Please be sure to
protect your photo(s) so that they can not be folded
or creased. We will return your picture with your
order.
Photographs should be mailed to us at:
QPB Laser Services
P.O. Box 190
Murchison, Texas 75778-0190
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Images requiring additional graphics work:
If we receive an
image that requires additional graphics work we will
quote that work at the time of order. This applies
to such things as extensive background removal from
a picture, logo or other black and white images that
are distorted and need to be cleaned up and
recreating images such as logos to produce a quality
engraving.
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Cropping photos / images:
Cropping your photos:
You may want to crop an image down (not the same thing as resizing) to the area you want engraved. Cropping an image does not degrade the image quality. Remember when you save your image though, check your options to ensure there is no file compression being used.
Cropping pictures for wooden jigsaw puzzles: Especially for the baby jigsaw puzzles, please do not crop your pictures! We orient images so that the face on the image is not in centered with a cut line of the puzzle pieces (as well as can be possibly positioned). But, this is of your choice. If it doesn't matter to you or you just want it done a certain way, we will be happy to accommodate.
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Options we provide for your engraving layout:
Read here to
see more details on these options
We
offer a number of options to
choose from to help you with your
engraving design which includes: Layout
orientation, font selections, font
size, border designs and more!
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