Almost everything written about this subject measures the wrong thing.
It counts megapixels. Megapixels are nearly irrelevant. Count the pixels on the face, and everything else in this article follows.
The 30-Second Answer
A source photo is good enough when the face measures at least 500 pixels tall inside the original file, is lit by soft directional daylight, and was taken from at least four feet away. Those three conditions, in that order. Resolution and geometry cannot be recovered afterwards; lighting can only be guessed at.
A twelve-megapixel phone photo — 4,032 × 3,024 — is roughly twice what a hand-painted portrait of any ordinary size requires. The same photo forwarded through WhatsApp arrives at about 1,600 × 1,200: sixteen per cent of the pixels you started with.
Most failed commissions are not bad photography. They are good photography sent through a chat app.
Part One: The File
Measure the face, not the megapixels
Crop the file down to head-only, save it, and read the pixel height in any image viewer's info panel.
| Face height in the file | What you get |
|---|---|
| Under 200 px | Unusable. Features are guesses |
| 200–500 px | A generalised likeness, viable up to about 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm) |
| 500–1,000 px | Reliable to about 20 × 24 in (50.8 × 61 cm) |
| 1,000–2,000 px | Full detail at any catalogue size |
| Over 2,000 px | No further benefit |
For calibration, from an entirely unrelated field: ISO/IEC 19794-5, the biometric standard behind passport and border-control photographs, sets a minimum inter-eye distance of 90 pixels, preferring 120 — the point below which a machine can no longer reliably tell one face from another.
A painter rendering a specific person needs substantially more than the threshold for machine matching. But it's a useful floor under the floor: if your photograph can't clear a passport gate, it certainly can't clear a canvas.
What each delivery route destroys
| Route | Result from a 12 MP original | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Original file — AirDrop, Drive/Dropbox link, WhatsApp Document, email at Actual Size | 4,032 × 3,024 (12.2 MP) | 100% |
| WhatsApp and most chat apps, sent as a photo | ~1,600 × 1,200 (1.9 MP) | 16% |
| Facebook Messenger | up to 2,048–4,096 px long edge, compressed | varies |
| Downloaded from Instagram | 1,080 px wide (~0.87 MP) | 7% |
| Screenshot of a photo on a phone screen | whatever the screen displayed, re-encoded | typically under 10% |
| Email at "Small" / "Medium" | a few hundred to ~1,280 px long edge | 1–15% |
The two lenses on your phone, six millimetres apart
Your main camera is a 24–26 mm lens — a wide lens, the kind you'd point at a room.
The telephoto beside it is 77–120 mm, which lands squarely in the range portraitists have used since portraiture went industrial: 85–135 mm, chosen because it renders a face at the proportions the eye reports at conversational distance.
Almost nobody uses the second one for a face.
And here's why it matters more than resolution. At about twelve inches — normal selfie distance — the nasal base photographs roughly 30% wider and the tip about 7% wider than the same nose at five feet, per a Rutgers and Stanford model published in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery in 2018.
The painter reproduces that faithfully, because to the painter it is not an error — it is the reference. Perspective is fixed at the moment of exposure. Cropping afterwards changes the framing, never the proportions.
Step back and zoom in rather than stepping closer.
The full reference specification
| Minimum | Comfortable | |
|---|---|---|
| Face height in the file | 500 px | 1,000–1,500 px |
| Whole-file resolution | 1,200 × 900 px (~1 MP) | 3,000 × 2,000 px, or a phone's native 12 MP |
| Inter-eye distance (biometric floor) | 90 px | 120 px |
| Camera distance | 4 ft / 1.2 m | 5–8 ft / 1.5–2.5 m |
| Focal length (35 mm equiv.) | 50 mm | 85–135 mm — the phone's telephoto |
| Camera height | Level with the subject's eyes | Exactly eye level; kneel for children, lie down for pets |
| Lighting | Both eyes visible, nose casting a soft shadow | Soft directional daylight — overcast outdoors, or 3–6 ft from a large window |
| Focus | Eyes visibly sharp at 100% | Eyelash line resolvable |
| Editing | No AI "enhance", no upscaler, no beauty filter | Straight out of camera; exposure correction is fine |
| Format | JPEG or PNG under 50 MB, max 10 files | Original camera file. HEIC not accepted — accepted: .jpg .jpeg .jfif .png .webp .avif, plus .pdf .doc .docx .odt |
Resolution by finished painting size
Deliberately not print-DPI figures. The right column shows what a giclée of the same size would demand.
| Finished painting | Reference minimum | (Giclée at 300 ppi) |
|---|---|---|
| 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm) | 1,200 × 1,600 px | 3,600 × 4,800 px |
| 16 × 20 in (40.6 × 50.8 cm) | 1,600 × 2,000 px | 4,800 × 6,000 px |
| 20 × 24 in (50.8 × 61 cm) | 2,000 × 2,400 px | 6,000 × 7,200 px |
| 24 × 36 in (61 × 91.4 cm) | 2,400 × 3,600 px | 7,200 × 10,800 px |
| 30 × 40 in (76.2 × 101.6 cm) | 3,000 × 4,000 px | 7,500 × 10,000 px |
| 36 × 48 in (91.4 × 121.9 cm) | 3,600 × 4,800 px | 9,000 × 12,000 px |
| 48 × 72 in (121.9 × 182.9 cm) | 4,800 × 7,200 px | 12,000 × 18,000 px |
Past roughly 30 × 40 in (76.2 × 101.6 cm) the print requirement exceeds any consumer camera while the painting requirement stays inside a good phone file.
Large hand-painted work is the format that tolerates ordinary photographs. That is genuinely counter-intuitive and it is the most useful thing in this article.
Part Two: Groups, Composites and Damaged Heirlooms
Yes, several photographs can become one painting
And it's the strongest structural argument for a painting over a print. Nothing is composited — the painter works the additional figure into a single, consistent light, so there is no seam to detect.
| Factor | Works | Fails |
|---|---|---|
| Light direction | All sources lit from roughly the same side | One face lit left, another lit right |
| Colour temperature | All daylight, or all tungsten | A warm indoor snapshot beside a cool overcast one |
| Camera height | All near eye level | One from above, one from below |
| Resolution parity | All faces clear the 500 px floor | One strong source, one 150 px face — the weak face stays visibly weak |
| Instructions | "Photo 1 for composition, Photo 3 for Dad, Photo 4 for the dog; remove the harness" | "Make it nice" |
Write the mapping down. It's the single highest-leverage line in the notes field, and it saves a revision round.
How many faces the canvas can carry
| Faces | Smallest canvas that lets each face be a portrait |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | 12 × 16 in / 30 × 40 cm |
| 3–4 | 16 × 20 in / 40 × 50 cm |
| 5–6 | 20 × 24 in / 50 × 60 cm |
| 7–9 | 24 × 36 in / 60 × 90 cm |
| 10+ | 30 × 40 in / 75 × 100 cm and up |
If budget forces a smaller canvas, paint fewer people properly rather than everybody approximately.
And note that price rises more slowly than area — a 48 × 72 in (121.9 × 182.9 cm) canvas is eighteen times the area of a 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm) but only about four times the price — so going up a size to accommodate a group is cheaper than it feels.
What can be rescued from a damaged photograph
| Condition | Recoverable? |
|---|---|
| Overall fading, colour cast, brown shift | Yes, routinely |
| Scratches, creases, stains, torn edges away from the face | Yes |
| Black-and-white or sepia, colour wanted | Yes — but eye and hair colour are guesses unless you state them in writing |
| Soft focus or camera shake across the face | Partly — the painter sharpens plausibly, which means inventing |
| A feature physically missing (eye torn away) | Only with a second reference of the same person, at any age |
| A 150 px scan and nothing else | No |
If the print still exists, scan rather than re-photograph. The federal digitisation guidelines behind Library of Congress and National Archives work set 400 ppi minimum on photographic prints, targeting roughly 6,000 pixels on the long edge — 1,200 ppi for a 4 × 6 snapshot, 850 for a 5 × 7, 600 for an 8 × 10. A supermarket flatbed clears that easily. Ten minutes under glass beats any phone held above it.
Dating a faded colour print by how it failed
Kodak chromogenic prints from 1942 to 1954 had catastrophic dye stability; survivors have faded to a specific dead brown, magenta and yellow gone while cyan hangs on, with coupler stain underneath. Stability improved materially in 1954, again in 1959, again in the early 1980s.
You can read a family's photographic decades off a shoebox by which colour left first.
Animals
Camera at the animal's eye level, never above — shooting down at something three feet below you produces a skull, a nose, and no eyes, and the eyes are the entire likeness. No flash: it produces retinal eyeshine that leaves the painter inventing an iris. Get the eyes sharp; fur will be interpreted regardless.
Part Three: What It Costs, How Long, and Whose Photograph It Is
The price ladder
| Size | Mus3ums | ArtsDot | OriginalUniqueArt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 × 16 in / 30 × 40 cm | $188 | $182 | $208 |
| 16 × 20 in / 40 × 50 cm | $214 | $207 | $236 |
| 20 × 24 in / 50 × 60 cm | $245 | $237 | $271 |
| 24 × 36 in / 60 × 90 cm | $320 | $310 | $354 |
| 30 × 40 in / 75 × 100 cm | $386 | $373 | $427 |
| 36 × 48 in / 90 × 120 cm | $489 | $473 | $541 |
| 48 × 72 in / 120 × 180 cm | $822 | $796 | $912 |
Faces: first three free, +$75 (4–6), +$150 (7–9), +$300 (10+), at a unit rate of $25 per additional face.
Options: elite artist +$100, customisation +$50, urgent production +$30, varnish +$15, nameplate $10–30.
Three worked totals: a single portrait at 16 × 20 in (40.6 × 50.8 cm) is $214. A family of five at 24 × 36 in (61 × 91.4 cm) with an elite artist is $495. A wedding group of eight at 30 × 40 in (76.2 × 101.6 cm), background simplified, needed in eighteen days, is $616.
The arithmetic nobody prints
A moderate oil portrait is 20–40 hours at 24 × 30 in (61 × 76.2 cm); a large detailed one, 50–70. Working from photographs collapses what used to be six to ten sittings into one or two — Sargent sometimes ran past eighty.
Take the low end against a $320 canvas at 24 × 36 and you get eight to sixteen dollars an hour, out of which also come the canvas, stretcher, paint, margin and crate.
Nobody buying is being overcharged. Whether anybody at the other end is being adequately paid is a separate question, and the answer is a concentrated production base in Shenzhen rather than anything a price card explains.
Time
Four to five weeks standard; under three weeks for +$30. Photographs of your specific canvas are due within 20 open business days of order confirmation — about four calendar weeks — extended where the painting is genuinely complex.
That's a date, not a mood, and it's the moment to raise a problem — not the moment the crate arrives.
Working backwards for a gift: a standard order needs five weeks plus shipping. For a December date, order in the first week of November.
Whose photograph is it?
Copyright vests in the photographer at the moment of exposure, and a painting made from their photograph is a derivative work — the posing, framing and lighting are the protected expression, not just the face.
This is settled rather than theoretical. In Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (May 2023) the US Supreme Court held 7–2 that a secondary work conveying a new meaning is not thereby transformative where the purpose is substantially the same and commercial.
And the underlying facts are almost exactly this transaction: Lynn Goldsmith's 1981 photograph of Prince, licensed to Vanity Fair in 1984 for $400, explicitly and in writing as an artist reference, handed to Warhol, and the resulting silkscreen licensed onward in 2016 for $10,000.
In practice: use your own photographs, or ask in writing. Most photographers grant permission readily for a private commission. And note that the print release most wedding contracts include is not the same instrument — it permits printing, not the making of a derivative work.
Head to Head: The Whole Commission Market
| Vendor | Takes your photo? | Composites & restoration | Approval step | Observed price | Lead time | Shipping |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mus3ums.com | Yes | Yes — up to 10 files; modifications +$50 | Digital mock-up before any paint | $188–$822 | 4–5 weeks (under 3 for +$30) | Free worldwide, in the price |
| ArtsDot.com | Yes | Yes | Mock-up | $182–$796 | 4–5 weeks | Free worldwide, in the price |
| OriginalUniqueArt.com | Yes, artist-led | Per artist | Per artist | $208–$912 | Varies | Free worldwide, in the price |
| Fabulous Masterpieces (UK) | Yes — people, pets, houses, ancestral photos | Yes, explicitly | Photograph of the painting for your approval | From £197 + VAT; up to 3 m × 2 m | 4–6 weeks | Free worldwide delivery |
| PaintYourLife | Yes | Yes — "compilation portraits" | Revisions | $199–$729; frames $49–79 | "As fast as 15 days" | Added |
| Instapainting | Yes | Yes | Not stated | From $89 | 5–15 days production | Added |
| Reproduction Gallery | No — catalogue only | n/a | Quality review before shipment | $299–$329 | Not published | Free worldwide (DHL / FedEx) |
| TOPofART | No — catalogue only | n/a | Not stated | Oils €944–€1,084 | Not published | Not published |
| MFA Images (Boston) | No — museum holdings only | n/a | n/a — printed | By order form | By arrangement | By arrangement |
| Local gallery artist | Yes | Yes | Sketch, sometimes | $300–$2,000+ | 8–12 weeks | Added |
The split down the middle is the useful sorting question: am I buying a picture that exists, or one that has never existed? Only half this market can make the second thing.
And among the houses that can, the thing to look for isn't price. It's the approval step — a mock-up before painting, or a photograph of the finished canvas before it ships. That's the only mechanism that catches a bad reference before it becomes a bad painting.
Nobody in this trade publishes a face-pixel threshold. I checked. So until somebody does, the table earlier in this article is the check, and you have to run it yourself, before you upload.
What the Money Does Not Buy
- Not an investment. A rendering of your own photograph has essentially no resale market. Its value is replacement cost.
- Not repeatability. A press is repeatable; a person is not. Insist on a photograph of your canvas before it ships.
- Not rescue for a bad photo. An elite artist paints a 150-pixel face more beautifully, and it is still not your grandmother's face.
- Not colour accuracy to your screen.
- Not speed. No oil commission clears two weeks honestly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a source photo good enough?
Face at least 500 pixels tall in the original file; soft directional daylight with part of the face in shadow; taken from at least four feet away. In that order.
Is a phone photo good enough?
Yes, almost always — send the original file and use the telephoto lens from four to eight feet back.
How much does it cost?
$188 at 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm) to $822 at 48 × 72 in (121.9 × 182.9 cm), first three faces included, options itemised separately.
How long does it take?
Four to five weeks standard, under three for +$30, with canvas photographs due within 20 open business days.
Can I use someone else's photograph?
Not without permission. A painting from a photograph is a derivative work, and a print release is not permission to make one.
The Verdict
Send the original file. Use the telephoto. Stand five feet back. Crop the face and count the pixels before you upload anything.
Everything else in this article is detail. Those four sentences are the difference between a painting of your grandmother and a painting of a compression artefact.
Further Reading
- F.A.Q. Custom Paintings from Photos
- Turn Your Photos into Custom Oil Paintings
- From Blurry to Brilliant
- F.A.Q. Bespoke Hand-Painted Pet Portraits
Sources
- ISO/IEC 19794-5:2011 — Face image data (PDF); Quality Assessment of Facial Images — arXiv
- Nasal Distortion in Short-Distance Photographs — JAMA Facial Plast Surg, 2018; Fried & Paskhover (PDF); Portrait lens comparison — Fstoppers
- WhatsApp Image Sizes — Imagic; Instagram resolution — TechCrunch; AI Image Upscalers in 2026 — Technology.org
- FADGI Technical Guidelines, 3rd ed. (PDF); Best Resolution for Scanning Photos — Forever Studios
- A Study of Kodak Color Prints, 1942–2008 — AIC Photographic Materials Group; AIC Conservation Wiki
- Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, 598 U.S. 508 (2023); Opinion of the Court (PDF); Copyright Law for Photographers — PPA
- PaintYourLife prices; Instapainting; Royal Society of Portrait Painters; Nikkei Asia on Dafen
- Reproduction Gallery, TOPofART, Fabulous Masterpieces and MFA Images archival replicas — commission scope, prices and lead times as published, August 2026.
- Site prices, upload limits and lead times quoted live from the published order pages, August 2026, with worldwide shipping included.
