Custom Engraving

We can engrave your personal photos on most all of our laser engraved items. All you need to do is send us a high resolution image to work from. We will give you some tips blow on what type of images work best with our laser engraving process.

Image Types: We can work from jpg, jpeg, bmp, gif, coral draw files, adobe files. Pretty much any type of graphic file. Color photos work best. We obviously do not engrave in color but having a color picture gives the picture more definition with helps with the quality when engraved. We can work with grey scale and black and white image though.

Image Quality: The better the picture the better the item is going to turn out. We recommend photos that do not have a lot going on in the back ground. If you have a very busy background in your image it takes away from the focal point of the image. If you have a picture you like but it has a busy background you can crop out the background before sending us the image. We will do some small correction free of charge but if your image needs extensive editing before it can be engraved there might be a small fee applied.

Resolution: The higher the resolution the better. 300 DPI is a good resolution. DPI stands for dots per inch. The higher the dpi the more dots per inch are used to make up your image. The lower the dpi the less dots per inch are used which can make the image very grainy and hard to make out. Most digital cameras will take 300 dpi photos if the camera setting are set to take a high resolution image. If you print your image on a color printer and it is grainy it will be grainy when engraved as well. We do not recommend anything thing under 150 DPI. Of course will be happy to try it but you may not be happy with the results. Feel free to email your image before purchasing an item and we will let you know if the image will work for the item you have chosen.

Image Size: If you are having your image engraved on a large item the image needs to be as large. For example if you are having your image engraved on a 8" x 10": plaque. You want the image to be at least 8" x 10" or close. If we make the image larger to fit the item we will loose some of the resolution. The exception to this is if you have a 300 DPI image and we enlarge it we should still have the minimum dpi of 150. Again if we find we are loosing to much resolution we will contact you before we proceed.

Scanned Images: If you have a printed copy of an image you would like engraved you can scan the image into your computer. Again you just want to make sure that it is a high quality image and that you scan it in at a high resolution. Another thing to remember if you are scanning your image is to make sure you clean your scanner bed before scanning the image. If you have any dust on your picture or scanner the scan will pick up the dust and add that to your image which will take away from your image. If you do not have a scanner you have a couple of options. You can mail us the picture for us to scan. If this is your only copy of the image and you do not feel comfortable mailing it to us you can take it to a local print shop like Kinkos. They can scan the image in for you and then give you the image on a cd that you can then mail to us or put the cd in your computer and email us the image. If your image is a copyrighted image you NEED permission from the photographer before you can have his/her work reproduced.

Cropping: When we receive your image we may crop the image slightly to make it fit the item you have chosen. If we need to crop a large amount of the image we will email you the image cropped for your approval before we engrave the item just to make sure we have not cropped anything important from your image.

Below are a few picture we have laser engraved:

Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a polished silver picture frame with a black anodized aluminum plate. We laser engraved the image onto the black anodized aluminum plate. We left a small black border around the image which looks like the picture has a matte. Then we inverted our image so the dark spots on the horse is where the black anodized aluminum was left on the plate. The silver around the horse's head is the aluminum showing through after we engraved the black off the plate. If you notice in the original image the picture was taken at an upward angle so the sky is the background. Which makes the horse head the main focal point. Since this horse was dark we left the sky so all the black would be removed around her head.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a polished silver picture frame with a black anodized aluminum plate. We laser engraved the image onto the black anodized aluminum plate. On this one we removed the background from the image. There was a lot going on in the background which took away from the dogs (The image below has background so you can compare the difference). Instead of putting a plain background in we left it transparent so it would be black around the dogs. They have a lot of white and if we did the image like the horse head above it would take away from the dogs and with the white feet it didn't really look like they had feet so leaving the black was the best option for this image.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is basically the same as above but in this example we left the background in and we do not have it in the frame. You can see how the floor really takes your focus away from the dogs in the picture. Since the floor means nothing in the picture we just removed it in the first example.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a ceramic tile. We left the background on this image. Which have a lot of detail around the horse. We can also crop just the horse so that is the focal point of the picture. These tiles can be used as trivets, decoration or even as a back splash.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a anodized aluminum dog tag that can be put on a ball chain necklace or split key ring. We deleted the sky background and inverted the image so the horse's head is the darker part of the engraving. It makes for a very unique image.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is another anodized aluminum dog tag. On this one we left the image background and the picture is inverted so the horses are the darker part of the engraved image.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a anodized aluminum luggage tag. It can also be used as a key tag. The image is inverted and the background was left as part of the engraved image.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This item is an anodized aluminum dog tag with a 3d photo image. As you can see we cropped everything in the image but Nick's head and then inverted the image. Then we use a 3D photo engraving setting to make his face the focal point of the engraving. This process works best with a picture of a person's head. If you leave the rest of the image the 3D effect does not turn out very well. Also this process doesn't seem to work as well with animals as they have a lot more going on. How cute is this?!?!
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a leather coaster engraved with a picture of my dog. No real changes were made to the image. We just engraved the image on the leather coaster with her head being the focal point of the engraving.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a piece of granite. The picture of the engraved granite doesn't do it justice. It looks much whiter and crisper in person. We left the background on the image and made a few adjustments to sharpen the image. This can also be done on Marble and ceramic as well as the granite.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a cherry wood finish plaque / sign. As you can see when you compare the picture to the engraving we cut out a great deal of the background We wanted to make the focal point the horse and rider. Plus there was a dumpster in the background and we didn't feel that enhanced the picture at all.. We had to leave some of the grass as it covered his feet and without it he had no feet which looked bad.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is a maple wood pen holder. Basically it is the same as the plaque above but on a lighter color wood. Lighter colored wood makes the images show up much better than the darker woods.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This photo is engraved on a spruce green / gold piece of plastic. We cropped the sky background out and just engraved the horses head. We have a large selection of plastic colors. This engraved item is a refrigerator magnet. It can also be a ornament. We can cut our plastic in any size or shape you would like.
Engraved Item	Original Image
This is basically the same as above except we engraved the horse on a larger piece of spruce green / gold plastic and placed it in one of our wood picture frames. It makes for a very unique framed picture.
Again we used the same image as above. Since we used a black / gold piece of plastic the horse's head blended to much with the rest of the plate so we added a little border around the horse's head so it would stand out better. This piece was is a plastic photo image tall plate. It can also be used for a sign or memorial.
Engraved Item
	This was a sample engraving file so we do not have the original picture but it is an bridle that we laser engraved onto a piece of plastic. The plastic is a off white color with a black core so when we engraved the image onto the plastic the black core of the plastic shows through.