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Memorial Portrait Guide: Choosing the Photograph
Memorial portraits are usually made under time pressure and emotional strain. This guide is meant to make the practical decisions quick, so you can spend your attention elsewhere.
Choosing the photograph
Choose the photograph that looks most like how you remember them, not the one that is technically best. Grain, softness and age are rarely the problem people expect.
Photos where they are doing something they loved — in a garden, at a table, holding a grandchild, with the dog — carry more of a person than a formal portrait does.
If your only copy is a print
Photograph it flat in daylight, without flash, holding the camera parallel to the paper and filling the frame with the photo itself. Remove it from the frame first if there is glass over it.
A flatbed scan at 600 DPI is better still if you have access to a scanner or a local print shop that offers scanning.
Groups and pets
Everyone in the photograph stays in the portrait — the same number of people, the same poses. Nothing is added and nobody is removed.
A portrait of a person with their pet is often the version a family finds most comforting.
Choosing a style
Pencil is the more common choice for remembrance: quiet, formal and timeless, and it works well from black-and-white originals.
Watercolour is chosen when the family wants warmth and celebration rather than solemnity — often for someone who died old, after a long life.
Using one file in several ways
Because you receive a digital file, a single $5 portrait can serve the whole family and the service itself.
- A framed print for the family home
- Smaller matching prints for siblings and grandchildren
- An image for the order of service or memorial slideshow
- A print for relatives abroad, printed locally to avoid shipping
- A copy kept for future remembrance anniversaries
Printing and display
Print at 300 DPI up to 40 × 50 cm / 16 × 20 in on matte or cotton fine-art paper. Matte avoids reflections, which matters if the print will sit near candles or a lamp.
Reusing a frame that belonged to the person the portrait remembers is, for many families, the most meaningful option available.
Timing
The preview appears in under a minute and the print-ready file downloads immediately after checkout, so a portrait can be ready for a service at short notice.
If the date is tight, call your print shop first and ask for their same-day size before you choose your print dimensions.