This guide is for anyone commissioning a portrait of a pet who has died. It is shorter and plainer than our other guides, deliberately.
The best photo is usually not the best photograph
People often apologize for the photo they send. It is blurry, or old, or taken in bad light in a kitchen. They send it anyway because it is the one they keep going back to.
That is almost always the right choice. The photo you return to is the one that holds the expression you actually remember — and expression is what a portrait is for. Technical quality can be worked around. The right face cannot be substituted.
What can be worked around
- A cluttered or ugly background — replaced entirely in every style we offer.
- Bad indoor color — corrected, though it helps if you describe their true coloring.
- A collar, lead or harness — removed, or kept if it mattered to you. Say which.
- Someone's hand or arm in frame — removed without difficulty.
- Partial obstruction — a half-hidden paw or ear can be reconstructed.
- Low resolution — less of a problem than people fear, particularly in watercolor and graphite, which do not depend on fine photographic detail.
What genuinely helps
If the photo is difficult, a sentence or two about them does more than a second photo: that one ear always sat lower; the gray came in around the muzzle in the last year; the eyes were lighter than they look here.
These are the details that make the difference between a likeness and them, and they are usually invisible in any single photograph.
About the revisions
You will see a preview before anything is printed, and you can ask for changes as many times as you need.
It is worth saying plainly: if the first version is not right, saying so is not a complaint and will not cause any difficulty. Getting a remembered face exactly right often takes a round or two. That is normal and it is built into how this works.
There is no deadline
Some people order within days. Others sit with it for months before they can look through photographs at all. Both are fine, and there is no expiry on our side.
If you order and then find you are not ready to choose a photo, that is also fine. Tell us and it waits.
The memorial collection holds two quiet pieces — The Guardian and The Companion. There are no halos or wings unless you ask for them. Any style in the full collection works equally well for this.
