Choosing a photo
We cut the pillow along the outline of your subject, which means the photograph does more work here than it would on a printed mug or a t-shirt. A good photo makes a pillow people gasp at. A difficult one makes a pillow with a vague edge.
Ninety percent of it comes down to one thing: can the subject be told apart from the background?
What works well
- The subject fills a good part of the frame. A dog across the room is a small dog in the photo, and enlarging it loses detail.
- A background that contrasts. A black cat on a pale sofa is easy. A black cat on a black rug is not.
- Even, soft light. Daylight indoors, or outdoors in shade. Harsh midday sun creates blown-out patches with no detail to print.
- In focus at the edges. The outline is cut from the edge, so a sharp edge matters more than a sharp centre.
- The whole subject in frame. A cropped-off ear or paw stays cropped off in the pillow.
What causes trouble
- Screenshots and heavily compressed images. Photos forwarded repeatedly through WhatsApp lose the detail we need. Send the original from your gallery.
- Motion blur. A wagging tail or a shaking head gives an edge we cannot follow cleanly.
- Busy backgrounds. Foliage, patterned fabric, or a crowd behind the subject makes separation ambiguous.
- Very dark or very backlit shots. If the subject reads as a silhouette to you, it reads as one to us.
- Heavy filters. These change edge colours and make separation harder.
A quick test
Look at the photo at arm's length and squint. If you can still clearly see where your subject ends and the background begins, it will make a good pillow. If the edges melt together, pick another photo.
We check before we print
A person looks at every cut outline before anything is printed. If your photo will not produce a clean shape, we get in touch rather than making something you will be disappointed by. That is why there is a review step, and why it adds a day.