How are pictures put onto headstones?
We break these down into 3 main types.
I guess the most common that stands out in a cemetery is the ceramic photoplaque usually showing a photo of the person who is buried there. Historically these have had their problems with fading and cracking. These days photoplaques that are designed to go on headstones (not cheap ones) don’t suffer these problems and will remain looking like new for many, many years to come. Some examples can be found here https://qualityheadstones.co.uk/photoplaques/
The next type are sandblasted with the same stencil as is used for the lettering. They can be quite intricate and left ‘etched only’ showing a contrast between polished and unpolished granite – this only works with the darker stones, painted or gilded as the letters or painted in full colour. We can do almost anything this way, small selection of our range of these designs can be seen here https://qualityheadstones.co.uk/etching-designs/
After this we get to the more intricate designs. These are done by a process called ‘photoblast’- producing a stencil from an image (person, pet, toy, etc) photographically and sandblasting, etching with a machine linked to a laptop or laser etching. All these methods have their own merits and the exact process is usually chosen that best suits the customer’s needs/tastes.
