Pet portraits sell well and refund badly, and the reason is always the same: the customer photographed a moving animal indoors, on a phone, at night. The design work here is quick. The work that decides whether the product succeeds is the upload rules and one line of help text.
Build it
Design the frame
Portrait shaped, with room around the animal. Set an Aspect ratio on the field so a landscape photograph crops to your shape rather than fighting it.
Set the rules high
A pet portrait is usually printed larger than a shirt, so set Minimum DPI and Hard block under accordingly. This is the product where a blocked upload saves a refund.
Let them crop
Set Upload mode to Crop & adjust. Only the customer knows whether the point of the photo is the face or the whole animal.
Add the name
One short text field under the portrait, with a Max length that fits your layout. A pet’s name is short; the story about them is not.
Write the help text
Four short instructions, on the field itself where they are read.
What to put in the help text
If you offer an AI style
A pet portrait is the product AI styles suit best, because the subject is recognisable and the transformation is the point. Test each style you publish on an ordinary phone photograph rather than a good one; a face that survives a watercolour may not survive a pixel-art treatment. See the AI styles you can offer.
Remember that each attempt is billed to your own AI key whether or not the shopper buys, so set a per-session limit before this product goes live.
Common questions
Most uploads are too small. What do I change?
Raise the hard block, and put the reason in the help text. A refused upload costs you a moment; a soft print costs you the order.
Should I offer to remove the background?
It suits this product well, and it costs a call on your own AI key each time. Price it in or offer it as a paid add-on.
The crop keeps cutting the ears off.
Design the frame with more room at the top, and set the aspect ratio so the cropper cannot produce a shape your layout does not expect.
Can they upload two pets?
Two image fields, each with its own frame and rules. Decide the layout for two before you offer it, because two is a different design.
How do I stop a blurry photo reaching print?
Nothing measures blur. The DPI floor catches small photographs, and the proof on the order is where you catch the rest.
Next
Read a photo shirt for the same shape on fabric, or make fields customer editable for the upload settings in full.