Photo guide

The portrait turns out exactly as good as the photo allows. Taking a good one takes two minutes, and it is the single most important thing you do in the whole order.

The short answer

Go outside into the shade, or stand by a window. Sit down so you are at the dog's eye level. Get close, so the head fills the frame. Get the dog to look into the camera. Take ten shots and pick the sharpest.

What makes the biggest difference

• Soft light. Overcast weather, shade, or indoors by a window. Direct midday sun gives hard shadows that eat the markings in the coat.
• Eye level. Shot from above, the nose comes out large and the head small. Get down on one knee.
• Close. The head should fill a good part of the frame. Rather than cropping afterwards, move closer.
• Eyes towards the camera. A sound just before you press the shutter usually does it.
• Sharp eyes. If the eyes are blurred, the portrait loses the thing that makes the dog herself.

Avoid this

• Strong backlight — sun or a window behind the dog. The face becomes a dark silhouette with no detail.
• A turned-away gaze combined with hard light. Either one alone can be worked with; together almost never.
• A small head far away in the frame.
• Sunglasses, scarves and large collars covering the face. We paint the collar out anyway.

Common worries

“The photo is old and a bit blurry.” That usually matters less than you think. We do not enlarge the photo; we repaint the dog at print resolution. A small photo from an old phone can make a perfectly good portrait, and memorial portraits work well for exactly that reason.

“I only have phone photos.” That is enough. Most of the portraits we make come from phone photos.

“The background is messy.” It makes no difference. Grass, sofas, televisions and other dogs are painted away. The dog ends up on a clean, even background in the colour you chose.

“I am not sure my photo is good enough.” Send it. We review every photo before we paint, and we say so if it will not hold up.

One dog per portrait

We make one portrait per dog. If you have several dogs you order a portrait for each, and you only need one good photo of each. Because the style is the same, they belong together on the wall even if you order them at different times.