How to Choose the Perfect Reference Photo for Your Custom Watercolor Portrait

Here's the thing about reference photos: a great one gives me everything I need — the expression that made you fall in love with that moment, the way the light fell across a face, the character of a home on a sunny afternoon. A not-great photo puts both of us in a difficult position, because I can't paint what I can't see.

The good news? You don't need a professional photographer or a perfect shot. You just need to know what to look for.

Resolution and Clarity Come First

This one sounds obvious, but it's worth saying: the bigger and clearer the image, the better I can work from it.

For portrait work especially (people and pets), I need to see the eyes clearly. That's the most important detail, because it's where the personality lives. If the eyes are blurry or too small to make out, I'm working blind.

The fix: check your photo at full size before sending it. Pinch to zoom in on the face (or wherever the most important detail is) and make sure it's sharp and crisp. If it's blurry at full size, try another photo.

Lighting: Why It Matters More Than You Think

Watercolor is a medium that loves light. The way light falls across a subject — the warm glow across a cheekbone, the dappled brightness on a garden path, the late afternoon sun catching the front of a house — is exactly what makes a watercolor painting feel alive rather than flat.

Natural light is almost always the best option. Overcast days are actually great for portraits of people — the soft, even light is flattering and easy to work with. Bright, indirect outdoor light is ideal. Midday sun can be harsh, but it works well for architectural subjects like houses or venues, where sharp shadows add definition.

What to avoid: flash photography (it flattens everything and creates an unflattering, washed-out look), dim indoor lighting (colors shift toward yellow or orange and details get muddy), and mixed lighting situations where half the subject is in artificial light and half in natural light.

If your only photos were taken indoors under lamps — don't worry, we can make it work. It just means I'll need to interpret the colors and smooth out the cast.

Backlighting: The One Thing I Can't Work Around

This is one I can't wave a magic brush at.

A backlit photo is one where the main light source is behind your subject — a window behind a person, the sun behind a house outline.

The result in a watercolor portrait? Muddy, indistinct, sometimes unrecognizable. No amount of artistic skill compensates for not being able to see what I'm painting.

The fix is easy: position yourself so the light source is in front of your subject, or to the side. Take the photo in the direction of the light, not against it.

Shadows: The Secret Life of Great Watercolors

Here's something that separates an okay portrait from an extraordinary one:

You would never think such a small thing matters this much — but in watercolor painting, shadows are actually the life of the piece. Long, well-defined shadows create depth, movement, and a kind of whimsy that flat, shadowless photos simply can't generate.

The best time of day for house or landscape photos? Early morning or late afternoon, when the sun is lower and casts longer shadows. The golden hour before sunset is genuinely magical for this.

On the flip side: photos with no shadows at all — taken at midday with overcast light, or indoors under diffuse lighting — tend to result in paintings that feel a bit flat and grey. There's nothing wrong with them, but they're missing that dimensional quality.

If you're planning to commission a portrait and want it to sing, shoot your reference photos at a time of day when shadows are long and interesting.

Background Clarity

For portraits of people and pets, the background matters more than most people realize — not because I paint it exactly as-is, but because a cluttered background makes it much harder to separate the subject from their surroundings, especially in the early sketch stage.

The ideal background is clean and simple. A plain wall, a garden with soft bokeh, an open sky. Something that lets your subject stand out.

Busy backgrounds — a crowded room, a cluttered street, a parking lot — aren't impossible to work with, but they complicate the composition. I'll often simplify a busy background in the painting anyway, so a cleaner reference photo just makes the whole process smoother.

Emotional Resonance Over Technical Perfection

A technically perfect photo of a moment nobody cares about isn't as useful as a slightly imperfect photo of a moment that means everything.

For family portraits and couples: candid shots often work beautifully. The laughing-mid-sentence photo. The one where they're not posing but just... together.

For pets: the photo that actually looks like them. Not the posed one where they're sitting perfectly still (is that even possible?), but the real one that captures their personality.

For houses: the angle you love. The front that says "home." Not necessarily the listing photo (though those are often great), but the view that means something to the person who lives there.

What If Your Photos Aren't Perfect?

Good news: I work with imperfect photos all the time. Portraits for grieving families who only have old, grainy photos. Wedding venues photographed in overcast light. Beloved pets who refused to sit still for a single clear shot in their entire lives.

The key is giving me as many options as possible. Send five photos instead of one. Send the blurry one and the sharp one. Send different angles, different moments, different lighting. The more I have to work with, the better I can piece together a portrait that feels complete and alive — even if no single photo is perfect.

And if you're not sure whether a photo will work? Send it anyway. I promise I won't judge.

Now that you know what to look for, dig into that camera roll. You probably already have the perfect photo — it just might take a moment to find it.

When you're ready, head over to janedeart.com to start your commission. Have questions about whether your photos will work? Send them my way. I'm always happy to take a look.

THINGS TO AVOID

TOP THINGS THAT MAKE YOUR PORTRAIT BETTER