The pendant is steel and glass. The chain is a chain. What decides whether the gift lands is the photograph you put inside it. That is the single most common piece of feedback we get from people who write to us a month after delivery: the design was nice, but the photo was the moment.
Pick a candid, not a studio portrait
The brain remembers a laugh. The brain forgets a posed studio shot in three weeks. When the projection lens reveals an image you have seen a thousand times in formal photography, the surprise is small. When it reveals a face caught mid-laugh in the kitchen on a Tuesday morning, the surprise stays.
If you have both options, send the candid. A holiday snapshot, a phone photograph from a quiet moment, a screenshot of a video call. These outperform every wedding portrait we have ever microprinted.
Old prints work fine, even grainy ones
If the only photograph you have of the person is a faded 1970s print or a Polaroid from 1992, send it anyway. Our microprint process is built around the assumption that a meaningful photograph is often not technically perfect. The grain holds through the microprint and gives the final lens a slightly softened, real quality that polished modern shots sometimes lack.
Scan the print at any reasonable resolution (smartphone photograph of the print is fine, dedicated scan is better). Send the file at original resolution; we handle the resizing internally. A 1500-pixel-wide scan of a 1960s wedding photograph has lived inside several thousand of our lenses without issue.
The face has to fill at least one third of the frame
This is the one hard rule. If the face in the original photograph is smaller than one third of the frame, the microprint loses too much definition. The lens still works, but the image becomes hard to read as a recognisable person.
Most modern smartphone photographs already meet this requirement. If you are working with a group shot where the subject is one face among many, crop down to the face before sending. If the only photograph is a wide landscape with the person small in the frame, ask the relative who took it whether a closer version exists somewhere.
What we cannot make work
A short honest list, from eight years of returned files:
Photographs where the face is obscured. Hat shadow across the eyes, sunglasses covering most of the face, hair across half the face. These get rejected at our prepress check and we ask for a different photograph before fulfilment.
Heavy motion blur where no facial features are sharp. A small amount of softness is fine. A full blur where you cannot identify the person is not.
Photographs that are only of the back of someone's head. The lens cannot infer a face. If the only photograph you have is from behind, the engraved name or initial piece is the better answer; we cover the alternatives in our memorial jewellery guide.
Screenshots of video calls with watermarks or overlays. Crop the overlay out before sending, or send the original frame from the video file.
What works particularly well
A short list of repeat patterns, from the orders we have shipped most often.
The newborn foot from the hospital bracelet. Our single most-requested image for new parent gifts. The pose is universally recognisable and the small dimensions of the foot suit the lens perfectly. New mums and dads receiving this almost always cry.
The pet portrait taken from across a room. Dogs and cats photograph well into the lens because their faces hold the frame easily. A retriever lying on a sofa, a cat sleeping in a sunbeam, both work.
The first day of school photograph. Bright daylight, child centred in frame, holding their school bag. Same pattern as the newborn foot: instantly recognisable to the wearer.
The wedding day candid. Not the posed studio shot — the one taken five minutes before, where someone caught the couple laughing.
The grandparent portrait from the 1970s. A scanned print of a relative who is no longer here. The grain reads as authenticity, the period clothing dates the image, and the lens carries the memory without ceremony.
How to send us the file
Most of our customers upload directly through the product page when they order. JPEG, PNG, and HEIC files are all fine. We accept files up to 25 megabytes. If your file is larger, downsize to roughly 2000 pixels on the long edge and resend.
If you have multiple candidates and cannot decide, send them all in a single email after ordering — our team picks the strongest for the lens and writes back to confirm before we go to microprint.
Frequently asked questions
What file format and resolution do you need?
JPEG, PNG, or HEIC. Original resolution from your phone or scanner is plenty. We handle the resizing to microprint scale.
Will an old grainy photograph work?
Yes. The microprint process is forgiving with grain. The result still reads as the same person.
What if the only photograph I have is a group shot?
Crop the photograph down to the face you want to feature before sending. The face should fill at least one third of the cropped frame.
Can you fix a photograph that is too dark or low quality?
We do basic exposure correction before microprint. We do not reconstruct missing detail. Send the best version you have.
What if I want a photograph that has someone I do not want included?
Crop them out before sending, or tell us in the order notes which person to centre the microprint on.
A short closing note
The single most common mistake new customers make is overthinking the choice. The most powerful images in our archive of customer photographs are almost never the carefully chosen studio portraits. They are the casual phone snapshots taken on ordinary days. If you find yourself agonising for a week between options, default to the most recent candid that makes you smile. That is usually the right one.
