If you are taking new photos specifically to make stamps...

1.  Different Colored Background: Shoot your picture on a plain or neutral colored background, such as a plain wall or door. Make sure the background color is different than the color of the subject - In other words, don't shoot a white dog on a white background.

2. Head/Shoulder Shots: Fill the Frame!  Move to within 3-4 feet from the subject, or zoom in close enough so that your subject fills the frame.  

3. High Resolution Setting: Set Your Camera to a high pixel setting – the more pixels the better.

If you have photos already, and you'd like to make stamps from them...

1.  File Formats: Any of the following formats is acceptable: jpg, gif, tif, pcx, bmp & psd.

2.  Photo Selection: Choose photos in which the subject/s are in focus, and are large enough in the photo that they don't have to be 'blown up' to fit the stamp size.  Example

3.  Clear Features: Choose a photo that clearly shows the subjects' features - generally if you can clearly see eyes, lips, teeth, nose, etc., the photo should be ok.  

4.  Shadows/Bright Flash?: Check to make sure that either a shadow isn't obscuring the face, or that the face is overexposed by too bright a flash.  In both cases, there may not be contrast in the features.

5.  Crop/Edit: If you have the ability to crop the photo yourself, do it - you will have more control over the final look of the stamp.  If you do crop your own photos, save them at 300 dpi if that option is available to you.

5. Not Sure?: If the photo you submit is not good enough quality to make a stamp from, we will return it to you with an explanation why, and your card will not be charged. 

Scanned Photos?

1.  Quality: Your scanner should save save scanned images at at least 96dpi, the more dpi, the better.

2.  Image Size: If the subject is small in the photo (smaller than a the stamp that is being made), then it will need to be blown up, and will be blurry.  Generally, an image is better if it is larger than the stamp, and has to be decreased in size to fit on the stamp -then we know that there is enough detail to work with.

3.  Not Sure?:  If your scanned image doesn't have enough resolution, or there are other problems with it, we'll return the file and your card will not be charged.