| Part 1. The most important thing to
remember is that the engraving can only be as good as the photograph. An
out-of-focus photo will produce....... an out-of-focus engraving. Be careful
about the background, try to choose a photo with a plain background, that
contrasts with the subject. Remember, an image with poor contrast will
produce poor contrast.
And, with regard to contrast, it is
obvious that black objects against a black table will not show up well. What
is not obvious is that any engraving is essentially a
Black and White, (actually "Grayscale") process. And if you have a red
subject against a blue background that looks good in colour, it may not look
good when converted to Grayscale if both the red subject and the blue
background convert to the same Gray level!
You can check this for yourself with most
basic image processing software, as they can convert a copy of your
photograph to Grayscale. Or there is an excellent online conversion facility
offered by Online Image Resizer. To use that
Click Here,
and then click "Launch Image Resizer"; then follow the instructions. After uploading your colour image (which must
be jpg or gif, and less than 2MB in size), choose the "Convert to Grayscale
(B&W)" box and you will see the Grayscale image.
Alternatively, just send us an
email with your photograph attached by
Clicking Here, and we will return your image converted to Gray Scale.
Part 2. In general, the brighter
and whiter the subject is, the
better. And try to avoid pictures where there is a lot of "clutter" in the
background; whether the clutter be objects or other people.
If we think your picture will not produce
a good outcome we will let you know, so that you can get good results another
way.
Surprisingly, "Passport" style photographs of people work very well, as they
usually just feature the person (s) that you want, on a plain background, without any other objects
in view.
You may wish to "crop" before you send your picture to us, or we can do that for you following your
instructions. Parts 2 & 3:
Summary. To produce good results the original photograph will be very
bright, and in focus; the area to be engraved will have a wide range of
significant contrast when viewed as Grayscale. Part 3. Getting
the Photo to us. If you are starting from an actual, rather than digital,
photograph you have two choices. Either post the photograph to us and we
will scan it and return it to you (Click
Here to obtain our Postal address). Or get it scanned and proceed as
follows. For digital images you have
a number of options. If the image already exists on the Web just tell us the
web address, and which photo it is, and we will download it for you. If it
is not on the Web you can email it to us directly as an attachment by
Clicking Here. If the photograph
is on your mobile phone, and your phone is capable of sending emails just
send it to
info@MyPhotoEngraved.com. Or send it to us
using the Mobile Phone SMS facility.
Click Here to obtain our Mobile telephone number. |
