After I scanned the photo, I then cropped it or enlarged it, which ever the photo needed.  You will have to find out if your printer, prints on the top or the bottom of your transfer sheets. This way you will know what way to  load the sheet  into your printer.  I usually test print the photo on a regular sheet of computer paper to make sure it looks OK.  After all, regular computer paper is a lot cheaper than photo transfer sheets.  You also want to make sure that any photo that has writing in it is copied,so that the writing reads correctly when it is transferred  to your white material and not backwards.  If it does come out backwards on your test print, just flip the image, or what ever button on your printer does this function.

There are several types of transfer sheets available.   One kind is where you iron your transfer onto a piece of white material.  The other type makes like a sticker, that you stick on your white block, then set it with an iron.  Either one will work, and they are both machine washable.  You might want to pick up a pack of each so you can try for yourself, then decide.

For some reason, sometimes the photo will print darker than the photograph.  I don’t know the reason for this.  Maybe it is that the transfer paper has a different texture than regular computer paper so it absorbes the ink differently.  I just don’t know.

Next comes sizing the photos.   This is really personal preference.  For Peggy’s memory quilt I left the pictures pretty much the size they were.  I may have zoomed in on a few, but for the majority I left them alone.  Now I do admit, I used adobe photo shop on them and “tweaked” them a little.   Adjusting the color, sharpness, etc. to make them as clear and good as I possibly could.  The majority of the photos were the standard 4″x6″.  But when you are sizing your photos, make them a size that looks good and fits the look of the quilt.

With Mom’s pictures I cropped them down to where they were all the same size.  I believe I made them 5″x5″.  With her quilt having so many different materials I thought the consistency of the photo size would helped to balance it out, and it did.  I used a hewlett/packard 1600 printer-scanner all in one and it was very simple to use.  Any scanner will work, but as far as the printer goes , I would try to stick with a laser printer, or a made for that purpose…printing photos.photo printer

The types of picture doesn’t really matter.  They can all be different sizes and color.  I have used black and white with color pictures, as well as a few sepia tone photos.  They can be portrait pictures or landscape ones.  Just find photos you like.  After all,  it must be a pretty nice and warm memory  for you to have a photo of it.  I try to keep a balance to my photos.  In other words I try not to have an odd number of photos that are color or black and white.  There is always a place on your quilt where you can place 2 sepia tone photos and have it look balanced.  But not quite so easy when you have 3 to place.