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Selecting the Picture

The easiest way to pick the best picture for your portrait is to select a photo that shows your face and upper torso very clearly. Generally, pictures taken under natural light looks better, but please watch out for overexposed photos.

Resolution:

Photos stored in a higher resolution format will render more details in the final art work. Higher Resolution does not mean the picture is larger. If you are taking a digital picture, please set your camera to the highest mega pixel setting. (i.e. The camera will store the least number of photos onto the memory stick.) If you are scanning a conventional photograph, please make sure to scan it at higher than 300 DPI. If you are scanning a very old photo, make sure that the photo is of a portrait and not a group photo, in which the model to be converted is not clearly shown. (Please read the next section "composition" to get an idea.)

As you can see from these examples below, the photo on the right produces an illustration with much more details, whilst the one on the left results in a drawing that looks more abstract. In addition, higher resolution photographs tend to result in portraits that look more accurate.

Image at 72 DPI (Dots Per Inch)	Image at 300 DPI*

* this particular photo is an example saved at 72 dpi for web use, keeping the same overall pixel count intact.

Composition:

The optimal photograph will be a digital picture of one person taken in front of a plain background; imagine a very clear and large passport photo, or a head shot for actors and fashion models.

For a couple portrait, please make sure that two of you are not overlapping each other too much. Arms and shoulders overlapping is fine, but not a significant part of your faces.

Bad: cannot be turned into a portrait	Good: can be turned into a portrait

For Shadow Style:

Shadow style is unique in that the portrait is composed solely of two colours representing light and shadow. So naturally, the most interesting result comes from a picture with high contrast. For this style illustration, it is best if the subject was standing in front of a plain wall. Faces viewed from different angles also make a huge difference in the final art work.

As with the other styles, the higher the resolution of the original photo, the more details the portrait shows. Because this style is made up of simplified lines, some low-resolution photos will not be usable. (e.g. photos captured using web-cam and/or mobile phone)

OK: can be turned into a portrait (less contrast)	Good: can be turned into a portrait (more contrast)

Editing the File

If you know how to use professional tools like Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator or other consumer image editing programs, then you're all set. But this section is for those of you who are not too sure how to do basic image editing such as cropping and resizing. Since every Microsoft OS comes with Microsoft Paint (found under Programs > Accessories > Paint), we will show you how to resize your image using the Paint program.