So you want to display a favorite family portrait photograph in your dining room, but when you try to enlarge the digital image to the size you want, it becomes too pixilated and just doesn’t look right.
Or maybe you’ve always wanted an elegant painted portrait of your family but didn’t know how to go about finding an artist talented enough – or how to afford the expensive sitting fee they’re going to charge you! Fortunately, a portrait painting from a photograph can help eliminate both of those problems. Our artists can enlarge your picture without any difficulty, and since they’re working from photographs, there are no complicated sitting fees.

With those two issues no longer a concern, you’ve got no limits on the image you choose. But this raises another question: what portrait picture is the best one for you to use? If you’d like a painting of your family, maybe you want a picture from when everybody was purposely looking their best – a family wedding or a graduation, perhaps. Then again, if you’re wanting a picture of your baby granddaughter, you might want a painting that shows her as she really is right now – grinning with her first birthday cake smeared on her face. If you’re giving your son and his fiancé an oil painting from a photograph as a bridal shower gift, do you use a picture that was taken by their engagement picture photographer, or do you use a snapshot of them laughing together that you took at Thanksgiving last year?

Ultimately, the tone of the photograph you use for your custom oil painting is up to you. A great portrait can be created from either a posed or candid shot, as even some of the most famous portraits in history have shown. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is obviously posed and formal, while Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas look like they’ve been caught during a break from a long portrait sitting. Similarly, your custom portrait from a photograph can also capture whatever mood and level of formality you would like.

While we can’t say what type of photograph is best, we can give you some tips about the qualities that help a picture translate better into an oil painting:

1. Take the time to find a picture where everyone really looks how you want them to; if someone’s making an odd face, it’s going to be even more obvious when the artist enlarges it.
2. Make sure the picture is clear and the details are precise. While our artists won’t run into the pixelization problem that your photo editing software does when an image is enlarged on your computer, our artists also can only paint what they can see clearly.
3. Perform any corrections that you want made (red eye elimination, cropping, etc.) before submitting the photograph. Our artists assume the picture they’re getting is exactly the picture that you want painted.

Above all, take the time to select a picture that you really love, that truly captures the memory you want preserved. The best portrait oil paintings show someone as he or she really is, so pick a picture that really captures your loved ones. It may take a little bit of work to find the perfect photograph, but it’ll be worth the effort when your custom oil portrait arrives at your door.

Later this week: What makes a good landscape painting?