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The right kind of photo
To create the very best portrait, we really need to start
with the very best source material. As the portrait will
hang on your wall for many years to come,
it's worth taking
time to get the right photo for the artist to work from!
Below are some examples of photos that work well and others that don't.
We've also put together 5 rules of thumb to help guide you when choosing your photographs:
Perfect photos - work very well in all styles
These shots are all are very crisply in focus and the person fills up
most of the frame. As you can see from the close ups of the eyes, when you
zoom in on these photos, there’s plenty of detail there for the artist to work
with.
Reasonable photos - work in most styles, but could be better
These shots are OK, but don’t have the clarity or focus of the perfect shots.
When you zoom in on the details, the lines are not sharp. We can work with
these, but for the Graphic and Warhol styles, you would be better off with a
crisper photo.
Poor photos - don't
work well in any of the styles
Whilst these may be nice photos in themselves, these images are simply
too low resolution / fuzzy or small to use. When you zoom in on the face,
there is no detail that the artist could really get hold of.
The five rules of thumb
- The shot must be in focus.
Of all things this is the most important! Fuzzy shots are no good.
- The subject themselves should fill up most of the photograph.
Ideally you would send a head and shoulders shot. The problem with
shots that show the whole body is that when you look at the photo, the
face actually only fills up a very small part of the photograph and when
you zoom in it, there just isn’t that much detail there.
To try and find the lines of the eye or the real shape of the jaw
can be impossible with full body shots. The same applies to group shots -
it usually means there is not enough information about the face.
- Boring photos can make great portraits
Action or group shots make great photographs, but as portraits tend
not to work too well. A very simple passport-style photo is really best.
The subject should have their eyes open with the colour of the eyes
clearly visible.
- The face should be visible
Shots where the face is partially covered are not good. Trying to fake
in parts of the face simply doesn’t work.
- The more the merrier
If you are undecided as to which photo would make the best portrait,
then send more than one in and let us help you decide - the more the merrier!
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Simple Illustration style
The Simple Illustration style requires a very specific sort of photo to work
really well. A passport-style shot with the
person's head and shoulders taking up most of the frame is really ideal.
It is also important that they should have their mouth closed and that the photo is taken head-on, from the same level as the subject. This style is all about the shape of the face. If the mouth is open, or the photo taken from an angle, then this has the effect of distorting the shape of the face and the portrait just does not work as well.
Below is an example of the perfect photo for this style. As you can see, you couldn't
really say it is a great shot of the person, but for the style it works very
well.
Picture formats
We can take photos in most formats - prints, slides, negatives or
digitally. Digital photos are great as long as they were taken on at a
reasonably
high resolution so we can zoom in and still see the detail. We can take big
files - anything up to 15MB is fine.
Digital images
| Format |
Comment |
| BMP |
Very good "lossless" format, though tend to have very large filesizes.
Zipping
them up often boils them down to 10% or less of their native size and
doesn't affect quality one bit,
so highly recommended |
| JPG |
The most popular format for digital photos these days, and generally highly
satisfactory. If you have "doctored" them yourself in an image manipulation program, make sure
you save them with minimal compression (there is normally a percentage compression option in the
"Save File" dialog) - otherwise you will lose some of the inherent sharpness of the original. |
| TIFF |
Not so common nowadays, but some scanners still generate images in this format
as very popular with printers. We can handle these. |
| PSD |
The native format for images processed using Adobe Photoshop - again, a good
format which we can handle. |
| GIF |
GIFs are only really suitable for highly stylised graphics with large areas
of single colours. Not recommended. |
| Other |
We will try to extract anything you throw at us, so don't
be afraid to
send us material which
doesn't fall into the above list. |
Copyright
In sending in your photos to You Are Art you warrant that you are either
the copyright owner or have the permission of the copyright owner to use the
image.
Request a no-obligation quote
Read more about our Portrait service
Why choose us?
Customer testimonials
Portrait price guide
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Gallery of portrait styles
Framing options
Exhibitions
Finding the right photo
Watch us interviewed on (3 mins)
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gallery
of styles 