The engraving on your pendant is only as good as the photo it starts from. You don't need a camera or a studio. A phone and two minutes of your pet's patience are enough.
Use daylight, not flash
Stand near a window. Flash flattens the ridges and pads of the paw, and those ridges are exactly what makes your pet's print theirs and no one else's.
Shoot straight down
Hold the phone directly above the paw, not at an angle. An angled photo distorts the shape, and our designer has to guess at the proportions.
Plain background
A wooden floor, a light towel, a sheet of paper. Anything busy, like a patterned rug or a blanket with texture, makes it harder to separate the paw from what's behind it.
Fill the frame
Get close enough that the paw takes up most of the picture. Don't zoom in digitally afterwards; that throws away detail.
Two people is easier than one
One holds the paw gently, one takes the photo. Do it when your pet is already relaxed, after a walk or half asleep on the sofa. If they pull away, stop and try later. A stressed pet gives you a blurry photo and a bad afternoon.
Take five, send the best
Paws move. Take a handful and pick the sharpest one.
If your pet has passed away
Many vets take a paw print impression at the time of passing, on paper or in clay. A photo of that impression works just as well as a photo of the paw itself. If you have neither, we can engrave a template paw together with your pet's name. Send us a message and we'll walk you through it.
Once you've got your photo, our designer cleans it up before anything is engraved. If the image can't be used, we come back to you first, and nothing gets made until it looks right.