Somewhere in your camera roll, among 12,000 screenshots and photos of parking spots, is the picture. The one worth putting on the wall. Here's how to find it and make sure it prints as well as it deserves.
Choosing the photo
Real beats posed. The slightly blurry-around-the-edges laugh beats the stiff smile in front of the fireplace. You're printing a feeling, not a passport photo.
Faces need light. Photos taken near windows or outdoors print beautifully. Dim indoor shots that look fine on a bright phone screen can print murky.
Give it room to breathe. A photo where the subject is centred with a little space around them crops well onto any product shape.
The squint test: squint at the photo. If you can still tell what's happening and who's happy, it'll work at any size.
Getting the file right
This is the part everyone gets wrong, so here it is in bold: send the original file, straight from your phone.
- Photos saved from Instagram or Facebook are compressed and print badly
- Photos sent through WhatsApp get squashed to a fraction of their quality. Ask for the original instead
- The bigger the file, the sharper the print. More pixels, more detail
For our keepsakes specifically
Every TimeFrame piece pairs a photo with a video, so match their shapes: portrait photo with portrait video, landscape with landscape. Keep the video 20 to 30 seconds.
And if you're second-guessing yourself, don't. Send it anyway. We check every photo before printing, and if it won't do your moment justice, we'll tell you before we make anything. Full details in the photo and video guide.