Tips for Good Photographs

It's important that we have a good quality photograph to work from to create your portrait .

For many of our art styles a head shot taken indoors against a plain wall is most preferable. Photos taken outside in the sunlight can create shots with very strong shadows which sometimes can cause problems. If you do want to take a photo outside try to have the light source in front of the subject.

When taking head shots of your subject, hold the camera at eye level or slightly above. For body shots try to position the camera at shoulder height.

Some of the best portrait photographs are where the subjects are looking completely comfortable as if they are not looking at the camera. When people try to smile or make a certain kind of face or pose for the camera it usually doesn't seem very genuine. The trick is to capture the subject(s) when they aren't necessarily focused on the camera.

Photo Quality

Try to avoid blurry photos - Make sure that the photograph is in focus with the face and in particular the eyes are sharp; Some camera actually have a portrait mode on them.

You can achieve great results with both film and digital cameras, but if you are using a digital camera, try to set the image resolution the the maximum possible (see your manual on how to do this).