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MemorialPrintKit

How do you make a memorial photo for a funeral?

Choose the clearest photograph of their face, check how large it can print, put a plain or quiet background behind them, add their name and dates if you want them, then crop it to each frame size and take the files to a print shop. Most services need three prints: 8x10 for the register table, 5x7 for the program and 20x24 for the easel.

Six steps, from photograph to print

None of this needs design software or design experience. The steps are in this order because each one depends on the one before it.

  1. Choose the photograph. Pick the one the family recognises, with the face clear and in focus. Then look for the original file rather than a copy: a photograph from the camera roll of the phone that took it holds far more than the same picture saved from Facebook or sent by text.
  2. Check how large it can print. Do this before choosing a frame. A 12 megapixel phone photograph makes a sharp 8x10, but reaches only about 151 DPI at 20x24, below the 200 DPI an easel print needs. The free print-size check answers this for your own file, size by size, with the crop for each frame already subtracted.
  3. Choose what goes behind them. A kitchen, a party or a crowd behind the person can be swapped for white, a plain color or a quiet scene. Done properly, the person is lifted out exactly as the camera recorded them and the face is not redrawn.
  4. Add their name and dates, if you want them. Usually two lines, the name and then the years, near the bottom of the picture. Keep the letters small enough that the face stays the centre of the portrait, and have a second person check the spelling and the years before anything is printed.
  5. Crop it for each frame size. An 8x10 frame is 4:5, a 5x7 is 5:7 and a 20x24 is 5:6, so the same photograph has to be cropped differently for each one. Frame it once around the face and cut every size from that framing, so the portrait on the table matches the one on the easel.
  6. Take the files to a print shop. Any photo counter, print shop or online lab will print them, and the funeral home can often arrange it. Give them the file made for the exact size you are ordering, and ask the funeral home which size their easels take first: 20x24 and 18x24 are both common.

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Which prints a service usually needs

8x10 is the portrait on the register table, beside the guest book. 5x7 is the program photograph and the size most often given to family afterwards. 20x24 is the easel print at the front of the room.

A memorial picture board holds several photographs rather than one portrait. Most of them are small prints that almost any photograph can manage, so the board is the place for the older and smaller photographs that could not carry the easel print. If the board has one large centre photograph, often 16x20, that is the one to check.

Making it yourself, in a browser

Our tool does all six steps in one page: the print-size check, the background, an optional enlargement for a photograph that is too small, the name and dates, and a crop for every standard frame size from 5x7 to 24x36. Everything runs on your own computer, and the photograph is never uploaded.

The check, the background and the enlargement are free, and so are watermarked downloads to see the result. The full-resolution files for that photograph, in one ZIP for the print shop, are $12 once, with no account and no subscription.

If you would rather someone did it for you, portrait services and many funeral homes will. It costs more and usually takes a day or more, which is worth knowing if the service is soon.

Three things to avoid

Do not let a tool redraw the face. AI image generators and face restoration apps return a picture that looks sharper and is subtly not the same person, and on the portrait everybody looks at, the family will notice.

Do not stretch a small file to fill a large frame. Making the file bigger in a photo app spreads the same detail over more pixels, and the print comes out soft at the larger size. A sharp smaller print reads better than a soft large one.

Do not paste the photograph into a Word document to send it. That step alone can reduce the image to a fraction of its pixels without saying so. Send the image file itself.

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Last updated 2026-09-18.