Photo Scanning Guide

Karen & Greg are here to help you...

  Email us your photo to  sales@sharedmemories.com.au

  We will produce and send you a draft for your approval.

  We discuss with the you the engraving words.

  Once you are happy with the photo and engraving, payment is arranged.

  We make your plate or crystal and ship it to you.


A bit more help...

If you are really comfortable with computers and know your way round a scanner - this page isn't for you! If however you are one of the many people who ask us for some guidance on how to scan and submit a photo to us, we hope you'll find this page useful.

What resolution/quality to set your scanner.

1. Our recommendation is to set the scanner to scan at 300dpi (dots per inch) minimum.
2. Preview your photo.
3. There should be a button called Preview. This does a quick scan with the current settings.  Always a good idea, so you can check the align

Selecting the scanned area.

All scanners have a means whereby you can marquee (select) only the area of the scannable area you want. This means that you only scan the photo and not the entire A4 sized area on the scanner. This is helpful in reucing file size for sending to us yet maintaining quality. Essentially, you use the mouse to drag a box around the photo. If you can't do this part, that's ok, it's not critical.

Scan in Colour

Your scanners software gives you the option to scan images in colour, grayscale or black and white. Even if your photo is in grayscale, please scan it in full colour.

Dust, scratches, faded photos

Within reason, we will do our best to remove blemishes and defects on the photo free of charge. Please request this though in the notes section when you make your order r when you sent your photo to us, just to be sure that it is brought to our attention. Sometime we need to extend the photo so as to allow it to fit the product. We will discuss this with you. Just remember, it's all about getting the best possible result!

Saving your file

We find that it's best to send us JPG files. Make sure you save it as a high quality JPG though as low quality JPGs aren't very good at all. We suggest the file size should be no smaller than say 500kb. If there are any issues about quality or size, we will discuss this with you.

Should I use the 'Scan to Email' Option in my scanning software?

We strongly advise you NOT to use this option. The result is very small images. It is best to use the output option 'Save to File'. You can then upload or email it from there.