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The Ultimate Guide To Photographing Your Pet

How to take the best possible photos to ensure that personalised products come out as awesome as the best examples that you see online

So you have seen the perfect personalised pet product, whether its a gorgeous canvas design featuring your pet, a SquishyFacedCrew 3D pet shaped pillow or one of our incredible bespoke cuddly toys of your pet. Or maybe you have seen a product on another personalised site, either way, things are going to boil down to taking the best possible photos of your pet.

Make no mistake, whether buying from SquishyFacedCrew or any other such site, the quality of the photos of your pet are going to make or break the final outcome. We're not magicians, so if you provide a grainy photo that looks like it was lifted off the seabed on the doomed Titanic, then you guessed it, the outcome is likely to be grainier and less clear then say a professional photo.

However, you most definitely do not need to be a professional photographer with a top of the range DSLR camera to do your pet justice and to get an incredible outcome from your personalised products - simply follow our super simple and clear guide and we'll nail it together!

HOW TO TAKE PHOTOS SO GOOD WE'LL BE ASKING YOU TO MODEL FOR US!

1. Daylight is always best

As a simple rule of thumb, always aim to take your photos outside, in clear daylight. At the same time though, avoid shadows - especially those covering say half of your pets body. Make sure the light is constant and consistent

2. Do not use the flash

Camera flashes provide a very harsh and 'washed out' light, as well as making it likely that we'll get some red-eye to deal with. Photos taken with a strong flash are likely to make your pets fur appear lighter then the natural tone, making your pet art or products look less true to form - which is most definitely not what we're after when it comes to personalised products featuring your pet!

Top Tip for gift buyers. Both our cuddly toys and 3D pillows can be created with the pet in a range of positions, and for the pillow especially, the photo used is key. We offer a see it before we ship it proof service, it may make sense to purchase a product and share with the recipient to ensure their perfect photo is used. Either that or ask them to share their 3 all time fave photos of their pet, and we can work with you to help choose the ones which will work best

3. Capture their whole body - including paws and tails!

It's really easy to accidentally cut out a tail or a hind paw. Its much less of a problem if you're going for a custom bit of art work like our Royalty (pictured) where we just use the face (ensure the ears and all are in clearer view mind) but when we're making custom products like our cuddly toy, which captures your pet from a full 360 degrees, its critical that we get all the details captured perfectly

GREAT PHOTO

Full body in view
Taken outside in daylight
Nice angle which captures the pets whole body
Camera held at the same height as the pets eyes

POOR PHOTO

The pets body is hidden by the scarf/wrap. This can work if its a special photo which means something to you, but in general, we would try and avoid photos which obscure the pet

GREAT PHOTOS

The pets faces are in clear view
The lighting is good, giving a true reflection of the pets colours
The photos capture the personality of both the Bulldog and the Golden Retriever

4. Taken at Eye Level

Photos taken at eye level work best - a simple rule to follow to maximise the quality of all of the different types of personalised pet products

WE CAN HELP YOU CHOOSE!

Top tip; if you have photos on a publicly available site like Instagram, share a link and we will help you choose a photo

We will work with you to ensure that we only use a really good photo, so do not stress and remember;

You can upload as many as photos as you like using our photo uploader tool - so if in doubt, add more photos and we will feedback with our recommendations
Ask us - we are here to help - give us a call, ping our live chat or drop us an email and we will guide you
You can order without a photo to secure your position in our queue - and can then discuss photos with our team
You get design proofs BEFORE we make your product - so you'll see how it will come out and can request unlimited changes , including a new photo entirely

So whilst the photo you choose is really really important, we are here to help and you certainly do not need to lose any sleep over it. Lets work together to get this PERFECT

HOW TO SHARE YOUR PHOTOS

We have two main ways you can share your photo;

Using our 'upload your pets photo' tool on our product pages (uploading as part of the normal buying process)
Sharing either before or after you buy with our help.

For the second option, you can either share your photos with us on email, live chat or social media.

Please note, you will need an order number before our team will create and share any mock-ups as we are busy working on the products for customers, so are unable to make samples without a valid order being placed

CHECK OUT THE PRODUCTS MENTIONED AND OTHER POPULAR CONTENT ON OUR BLOG

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