Right, Chip Steckman works on a grave memorial Thursday at C K Steckman Memorials in Renfrew. Below is an example of their work. Intricate images are becoming more common on headstones and can be done by laser etching.

Technology in the past decade has allowed funeral memorial businesses to help grieving loved ones personalize their memorials and to provide more detail to traditional granite headstones.

According to the National Funeral Directors Association, more consumers are planning funeral services that are as unique as the person who died.

The idea of personalization has resulted in an explosion of unique services that reflect the hobbies, passions and interests of the person who died.

The association, based in Brookfield, Wis., serves 18,500 individual members who represent nearly 10,000 funeral homes in the United States and abroad.

Jennifer Robinson, who operates Harrisville Memorials with her husband Jim, said there's now a wide variety of granite types and colors for family members to choose.

They receive granite shipments from around the world, and almost all of the black granite is imported.

With colors like granite, an etching can be done that doesn't go as deep into the stone and is done either by computer or by hand with detail added to the stone that couldn't have been done decades ago.

Laser etched designs are not cut as deep into the surface as sandblasted designs.

They have finer details and the image is created on the computer. Portraits and line art both can be laser etched.

Most photographic etchings are done on the black granite. Photographs can be placed on other color granite, but are usually inlaid, where the photograph is done on the black granite and inserted into a hole cut out in the lighter granite.

Traditional sandblasted designs are deep cut simple line art with little detail.

This technique is usually not suitable for portraits or photographs and must be used on gray granite and other light colored granites. It is also an option for darker granites.Kip Steckman, who operates C K Steckman Memorials on Evans City Road, Route 68, Renfrew, with his wife Debra, explained the laser etching process is done by burning a series of dots into the granite.His business also has a personal engraver who can take a picture and personally engrave the image into the rock by hand.“We try to make it (the memorial) as personal as possible,” said Robinson.“It depends how involved the people are. Some just want to get it over with and get out of here.”At C K Steckman, all the memorial work is done at the shop, from design, carving, etching and lettering. Robinson employs a portrait and religious artist, who learned his craft in the Ukraine.She said what makes her business different is that it doesn't do a lot of memorial stone carving there, opting rather to ship the stone to a professional etching shop in Vermont.“Their expertise just can't be compared,” she said.Depending on the time of year, Robinson said it takes about eight weeks from the time a memorial order is place, to having it personalized and installed at the grave site.When choosing a memorial stone, Robinson pointed out that many cemeteries differ on rules and the types and sizes of headstones permitted.Robinson said Harrisville Memorials works with cemeteries to create a stone that is acceptable. She added that the company is familiar with most of the Butler County cemeteries and their rules.

However, when questions arise, they call to cemetery to be sure.Some memorial businesses make it incumbent upon the customer to learn what is an acceptable stone and to buy it accordingly.While there are now a variety of memorial styles and granite types to choose, there is a growing interest in forgoing traditional funerals and burial to cremation and that hurts the memorials industry.According to the Funeral Directors Association, cremation accounted for nearly 35 percent of final dispositions in the nation in 2007.“A lot of people are going to cremation because of the recession and cutting out the traditional burial,” said Steckman, a trend he's noticed over the past several years.“Once the get cremated, they dump the ashes over Lake Arthur or put it on a mantel. Thirty or 40 years ago, it wasn't that prominent.”With costs of traditional funerals running up to $7,000 or more, it's a less expensive alternative that has cut into Steckman's business in recent years.But as the popularity of cremations has grown, so has its acceptance among various religious faiths.Religions that previously frowned upon cremation are now understanding its value to families and adjusting their doctrines to accommodate this choice.

Grave memorial at C.K. Steckman Memorial in Renfrew.

Jim and Jennifer Robinson at their business Harrisville Memorials in Harrisville.