Photo Tips

How to pick the right photo

The single biggest predictor of how good your socks turn out is the photo you upload. Here's exactly what to look for.

✅ The good

  • Well lit, front-facing. Natural light is your friend. Outdoor photos in the shade work great. So do well-lit indoor photos.
  • Face fills a good portion of the frame. Close-up or medium close-up beats a tiny face in a huge background.
  • Clear and sharp. Phone camera photos from the last few years are almost always sharp enough. Selfies are great.
  • Simple background. Plain walls, sky, or evenly lit scenes make our face-cropping more accurate.
  • Eyes open, mouth visible. Smiles, smirks, deadpan stares — all good. Tongue out — even better, honestly.

❌ The hard

  • Sunglasses — removes the eyes, kills personality, makes face-crop harder.
  • Hats with brims covering the forehead — same issue.
  • Profile shots (face turned to the side) — the crop won't include both eyes.
  • Backlit shots — face becomes a silhouette.
  • Very dark / low-light photos — colors flatten when printed.
  • Heavily filtered photos — Instagram filters can introduce weird colors.
  • Tiny faces in large group shots — we can crop them but resolution drops.
  • Photos with multiple faces for solo products — we'll only print one face.

📐 Resolution & format

  • Minimum: 500×500 pixels
  • Recommended: 1500×1500 pixels or more
  • Accepted formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC (most phone formats)
  • Maximum file size: 20 MB per image

🐶 For pet photos specifically

  • Face-on works best — get down to their level
  • Make sure the face isn't blurry from movement
  • Treats held above the camera work wonders for getting eye contact
  • Black pets need slightly more light than light-colored pets

👶 For baby photos specifically

  • Faces around 6+ months tend to print best (more defined features)
  • Natural light from a window is your best friend
  • Slightly older baby/toddler photos with bigger smiles read incredibly well

Not sure if your photo will work?

Upload it anyway and add it to cart — we manually review every order, and if your photo won't print well, we'll email you before printing to ask for a better one. Zero risk.

Still unsure? Email us a sample at hello@paraveso.com with a sentence about who's in it and what you want, and we'll tell you straight up whether it'll work.