How to choose the right photo for a pet portrait

The quick checklist

Look at the eyes first. If both are sharp, the portrait will have life in it. Almost everything else is forgiving.

What our pattern maker checks

Our pattern maker looks at every photo before it draws anything. These are its real rules, in plain English:

• Big enough. At least 400 pixels on the short side. Thumbnails, and screenshots of thumbnails, are too small to trace.
• Bright enough. A photo that's mostly dark is turned away. So is one that's almost all white.
• Sharp enough. If the eyes and nose are blurred, it can't trace them.
• A dog it can find. The dog has to fill a good part of the frame. A dog far away in a big scene is too small.
• One dog. If a second dog is half the size of the first or bigger, the photo is turned away. Crop it to the dog you want and try again.
• Clean line art. After it draws, it checks the drawing too. Big solid black areas, which very dark coats can produce, fail this check because they're miserable to stitch.

It doesn't do cats yet. If you'd like a pattern of your cat, join the Stitch Your Cat waitlist.

How to take a better photo in five minutes

No perfect photo? Take one today. It's quicker than hunting through years of camera roll.

1. Find window light. Sit near a big window in the daytime, with the light falling on your dog's face, not behind them.
2. Get down to eye level. Sit or lie on the floor. Photos taken from above make the head look small and the nose look huge.
3. Get their attention. Say their name, squeak a toy or crinkle a treat bag just above the camera, so they look at the lens.
4. Fill the frame. Move closer instead of zooming in. The head and shoulders should take up most of the picture.
5. Take twenty in a row. Use burst mode if your phone has it. One of them will have sharp eyes and the expression that's so them.
6. Turn off the effects. Skip portrait mode, filters and flash. Portrait mode can blur the tips of the ears, and flash flattens the face.

Old photos and memorial portraits

For a dog who's no longer with you, the photo you have is the photo you have, and many of them work well. Photograph a printed photo flat, in daylight and without glare, or scan it. Then crop in so the dog fills the frame, as long as the crop stays at least 400 pixels on its short side.

A small, soft or dim photo is harder. A pattern maker may turn it away, and tracing the clearest parts by hand can be the gentler route. Pet memorial embroidery has more on working from an old photo.

Black dogs, two dogs and other hard cases

• Black or very dark dogs. Use the brightest photo you have, taken outdoors in open shade or right by a window, so the edges of the face and ears show. In dim light a dark coat can come out as one solid shape.
• Two dogs. Pick one. A photo of two dogs side by side becomes two portraits, each from its own photo or crop.
• Pale or blue eyes. Choose a photo where the pupils are clearly visible. Very pale eyes sometimes need a quick check by hand.
• Collars and bandanas. Fine to keep, and often a lovely detail. A hand or a toy across the face is not.
• Puppies and wigglers. Burst mode and a treat. Sharp eyes matter more than a perfect pose.

Questions people ask

Keep going

• How-to guideHow to turn a photo into an embroidery pattern (hand embroidery)Trace a photo into hand-embroidery line art yourself, or let a pattern maker draw it with every stitch marked.
• How-to guidePet portrait embroidery: how to stitch your own dogThe whole process, from choosing the photo to finishing the back of the hoop, for a first hand-embroidered pet portrait.
• Gift ideaPet memorial embroidery: stitch a keepsake of your dogA gentle guide to stitching a memorial portrait of your dog, from an old photo to the words beside it.
• How-to guideHow to embroider eyes for a pet portraitSatin-stitched pupils with a bare highlight: the step that gives a stitched pet its expression.
• Dog breedsEmbroider your dog's breedBreed-by-breed stitch notes for hand-embroidered dog portraits, each with a real pattern made by our pattern maker: coat, ears and the lines that matter.
• Coming soonStitch Your Cat is comingThe pattern maker learns cats next. Join the waitlist, and stitch a cat by hand today with these notes.