A brief article on the different aspects of photo jewelry available on the market today.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Man has frozen his image in time the moment he learned to mark a wall. Whether our children, our work, places of awe our need to capture those moments are unwavering. The advent of photo jewelry has coupled with this phenomenon bringing the masses their most precious moments captured in time and displayed in their jewelry.
With this rise and popularity there has been an equal movement by vendors to meet the demand. With this many new technologies have come to fruitation. The malls in America are now amiss without a kiosk that impact prints their customers favorite photo in a pre defined dog tag, pendant or charm. This method while very inexpensive has less then impressive results, as it needs to be held at a certain angle to look good. These item are usually coated with a thin layer of rhodium or equivalent material over inexpensive metal therefore they wear very quickly. Having said all that with the actual piece costing the vendor about $2.00 you can’t find anything more competitively price.
New technology in laser printers has brought a new type of laser engraved photo jewelry to market. The precision introduced is spectacular and for black and white it’s a great product. The color version is also something to be considered but few state its shortcoming. The color laser jewelry is limited to a certain range of colors and tones. This is hard to see from samples as it is usually displayed along photos that fit in this range of limitations. With today’s technology in cameras the digital pictures rendered are rich in color and tones. So if you have great pictures carefully consider whether this product platform will satisfy your expectation in color and richness. Black and white looks great and it is fairly low priced product depending material of predefined stock.
Traditional picture jewelry as I will refer to it is the process of actually embedding the actual photograph and covering it with a protective epoxy in your chosen setting. To me this is the best of both worlds. You can transfer your favorite picture via digital upload and reprint it in its intended color spectrum. The photo being placed inside and sealed after leaves really no limitations to your setting. In fact you can readily find vendors who can custom make your picture jewelry setting, as it requires no base coating for imprint of pictures. Quality photo jewelry done in this manner is coated with a scratchproof, waterproof and UV resistant epoxy that will last for decades. There is more labor involved is this process but is still economically price for the value you receive.
The last but not least is photo engraved or relief carving picture jewelry. This type of jewelry is an actual 3D raised carving in silver. It is a labor-intensive process, as you can imagine, as it rivals laser in precision. It is a fusion between cutting edge technology and techniques thousands of years old. There are only couple places producing this type of photo jewelry. All with very distinct differences in final product and only one producing photo engraved rings. This platform is the most expensive and it only available in black and white or single tone gold. It is a product that should be consider an heirloom or truly special keepsake as each and every one create is truly world unique. It is a beautiful product for a memorial or bereavement gift but truly fits in all categories depending on the setting and picture.
