Photo engraving with a laser or mechanical machine

How to do photo engraving on different materials with precision? Laser or mechanical? Our experts have the answers!

Photo engraving (human or animal portraits) have been a strong trend for several years now. Today, it can easily be achieved with mechanical or laser photo engraving machines, a durable alternative to conventional printing.

From jewelry (pendants, bracelets, etc.) to personalized gifts and funeral plaques, this technique enables images to be engraved permanently on a variety of materials (glass, wood, acrylic, stone, etc.). Photos can also be vectorized for a drawing effect, opening up even more creative possibilities.

What you need to know about photo engraving:

- Format & Resolution

The right format

To obtain high-quality engraving, you need to pay close attention to the file format used: .png, .jpeg, .jpg, tif or .tiff.

Please note that photo engraving is not compatible with proprietary formats such as .raw.

The right resolution

A photo must be of the right quality to be correctly interpreted by the software and adapted to the required format.

The larger the image, the higher the definition must be. So, if you want a precise rendering for your photo engraving, opt for a good resolution (minimum at 300 DPI ). A poor-quality, overly pixelated file is likely to give a blurred or poorly detailed result, as the photo engraving machine will not be able to reproduce high definition.

However, engraving parameters (including resolution) will influence engraving time.