Choosing
Which photograph.
There is one decision on this page that everything else depends on, and it is not a technical one. The photograph has to be recognised by the room, not admired by the family.
The short answer
Choose the most recent photograph in which the person looks like themselves. Not the most beautiful, not the sharpest, not the one from the wedding. Recent, and recognisable. If the family's favourite is much older, use it in the slideshow instead, where an older picture is a feature rather than a problem.
This is the single choice that causes the most regret, and it is usually made in the first hour, on the phone, by one person, before anyone else has been consulted.
01 · The ruleRecent beats beautiful. Every time.
The room at a service is a room full of people who knew the person's face. Some of them knew it for sixty years, which means they knew it at eighty more intimately than they knew it at twenty-five — the lines, the hair, the way the glasses sat, the set of the mouth.
A portrait from 1979 is a picture of someone they remember. A photograph from last summer is a picture of the person they lost. At a funeral the second one does the work, and the first one, however good, asks the room to do a piece of translation at the hardest possible moment.
The photograph's job is not to be the best picture of the person who died. It is to be the picture that lets the room know who they are here for.
This is not a rule about age. It is a rule about distance. Someone who died at forty-two should be shown at forty-two, and their wedding photograph from fifteen years earlier may be exactly right. Someone who died at eighty-four should be shown at eighty-four.
02 · Where to lookThe good recent photograph is usually already on a phone.
Most families do not have a portrait of the last two years, and conclude that nothing exists. It almost always does — just not in a frame.
- The camera roll, last twelve months. Scroll back through birthdays, a meal out, a garden. The best photograph is often one nobody took deliberately.
- Other people's phones. The friend who visited, the grandchild with the good camera, the neighbour at the party. Two or three messages will usually surface one.
- Work. A staff photograph, a badge photograph, a picture from a retirement do. A work portrait is unglamorous and uncannily recognisable, which is exactly the point.
- A group photograph. Crop to head and shoulders. This is legitimate and normal — see the notes below on how to crop.
- A video. A frame pulled from video is soft but often has the most accurate expression of the person. Worth considering when every still photograph feels wrong.
03 · The group shotCropping a group photograph without it looking like a crop.
A group photograph is the most common source, and a bad crop is the most common failure. A few rules make the difference between a portrait and an obviously cut-up snap.
- Keep the whole head, including hair. The single worst crop is one that clips the top of the head. Leave a small margin above the hair.
- Cut below the collarbone, not at the neck. A crop through the middle of the neck reads as decapitation.
- Do not crop through a hand, an arm or a shoulder the person is leaning on. Half a shoulder looks like damage; a whole one looks like a portrait.
- Keep the ratio, then crop for the output. A group shot is usually landscape. Crop to a portrait shape for the easel and the program; keep the landscape crop for the slideshow.
- Do not remove the person next to them unless there is no alternative. A partner cropped out of the frame removes a large part of a life, and the room will know it is missing.
If the crop cannot avoid a missing shoulder, that is a reconstruction job rather than a repair — it has to be invented rather than recovered. What that means for the face.
04 · The hard casesWhen the most recent photograph is one nobody wants to use.
Sometimes the last two years were an illness, and the recent photographs show it. This is the genuine conflict, and it deserves a straight answer rather than comfort.
The usual resolution is two to five years back, not thirty. Far enough that the person looks like themselves, close enough that the room recognises them. Ask two or three people who saw them regularly which photograph looks most like the person they knew — not which is nicest, which is most like. The answer is usually immediate and usually the same from all of them.
If the family cannot agree, use two photographs. One for the service and one for the slideshow. This is not a failure to decide; it is what the two formats are for.
If the person is being shown alongside a partner who has also died, a photograph of the two of them is usually right, and cropping one out to make a solo portrait is usually wrong. If the partner is alive and attending, the same rule holds for a different reason.
Questions people ask at this point.
What if the family disagrees about which photograph to use?
Ask a third party who saw the person regularly — not a family member with an emotional stake in one picture. The question to ask is 'which of these looks most like them', not 'which do you like'. A practical resolution is to use the recent photograph for the service and the disputed favourite in the slideshow.
Is a photograph from a phone good enough for a 16 by 20 print?
Usually yes. A modern phone camera produces around 4000 pixels on the long edge, which covers a 16x20 easily. What ruins a phone photograph is not the camera but the route: sending it through WhatsApp or downloading it from Facebook can leave you with 1600 pixels, which is not enough.
Should the photograph show the person alone?
Not necessarily. A photograph with a partner, a child or a friend is often more like the person than a formal solo portrait. The easel print usually works best with one clear face, so a two-person photograph is better suited to the slideshow or a table display.
Can I use a photograph from a video?
Yes, and it is worth considering when every still photograph feels wrong. A frame from a video is softer than a photograph and often captures the person's actual expression, which matters more than sharpness at this size. Pull several frames and choose rather than using the first.
If the photograph you have chosen is damaged or faded
Repair it before it is printed, not after. Pinin restores fading, creases, dust and colour shift without altering the face, and the first photograph is free.
Repair the photograph