Most photos work great with our automatic cut-out, but it can only work with what the camera gave it. Five minutes of care here is the difference between a sharp printed photo and a soft one.
You are not on your own with it. One of our editors looks over every photo individually, and any changes are made before anything is printed.
Square-on shots make the best pillows. Stand square to the vehicle, step back, and fill the frame.
A three-quarter angle looks great in a magazine but can make an awkward pillow: the far end shrinks, and the outline stops reading as the shape people recognize.
Get the vehicle as large as you can while keeping a little space all the way round.
We crop to the subject anyway, so pixels spent on the driveway are pixels not spent on the print. Clipping a mirror or a spoiler at the frame edge costs you that part of the shape.
Overcast, open shade, or the hour after sunrise. Avoid midday sun.
Hard light can cast a strong shadow across the vehicle. Bright sun reflections can also make the cut-out harder to read.
A wall, a field, an empty lot. Anything that is not the same color as the paint.
A white truck against a white garage door is the hardest case there is. Contrast at the edge is what the cut-out needs.
Tap to focus on the body, then take two or three. Skip the ultra-wide lens.
Ultra-wide lenses on phones are softer and bend straight lines. A slightly blurred photo cannot be sharpened later. Use your camera's native lenses (1x, 2x, 5x...) and avoid digital zoom.
Upload straight from your camera roll. HEIC file type from an iPhone is great. Most all file types will work.
A screenshot is only the size of your screen, not actually of the photo itself.