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I use sketch pictures all the time. I work with small parts, usually under 50mm long, that have complex curves. Whenever I can, I scan the parts directly on a cheap old scanner and use the images in my sketches.
This is what I do: I scan the part in color, usually in 300 dpi, or 600 dpi when the part is under 5mm in size and/or intricate. Then in my favorite bitmap editor, I rotate the part until the longest, easiest to measure feature of the part is horizontal to within .1 degrees, crop the image precisely at the edges of the part, then write its measured length in red letters in a corner of the image. I save it in jpeg format, usually 85% compression.
After that, I simply import the scan as a sketch picture, input the length I measured and wrote into the bitmap in the X measurement, then position my sketch picture whichever way I want. The great thing is, if I ever need to reuse the scan again, even without the real thing, I can always scale it correctly again in SW because the size of its longest dimension is hard-coded inside the scan.
I have used scans at least 3000 x 3000 in size, although it tends to slow things down quite a bit. It burns memory and bloats file sizes too, if you decide to keep such sketch pictures when you save the part.
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