Bigger is better

The higher the resolution of your source image, the more room there is to work with — a card prints small, but any softness, pixelation, or compression artifacts in the original image tends to show up more once it's enlarged and printed, not less. A large, clean image gives the most flexibility; a tiny screenshot or a heavily compressed social media download gives the least.

Think about what's actually going to be in frame

Cards are a fixed, fairly tall rectangle. If your reference image is a wide scene, a full-body shot, or has important detail near the edges, it's worth thinking about what the focal point should be once it's cropped down to card shape — or just flagging what matters most so that's accounted for during layout.

Watermarks and heavy text overlays are worth avoiding

If you have a choice between a version of an image with a watermark, signature, or caption baked in and one without, the cleaner version is always the better starting point — it's much easier to work with source art that doesn't need anything removed first.

If you're not sure whether an image will work

Send it anyway. Every project starts with a conversation, and part of that is looking at what you've got and being upfront about whether it'll print well as-is, needs some adjustment, or needs a different source entirely. There's no wrong way to start — reach out with whatever you have, including just an idea and no image yet.

What happens after you send it

Once art is in hand, it gets adjusted specifically for print — brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness — so what comes out of the printer actually matches what's on screen. You'll see a proof before anything prints for real, so there's a checkpoint either way.

Have a project in mind? Get in touch — or see finished builds in the Gallery.