Obituary photo: choosing, cropping and cleaning one quickly

An obituary photo is usually needed in a hurry, by somebody who has a great deal else to do. A funeral director asks for a picture, a newspaper wants one by the end of the day, or a programme goes to the printer in the morning. The choices are few, and they are worth making in the right order: which picture, how it is cropped, whether the background needs quietening, and whether the file is big enough for the size it will be printed. This guide goes through them in that order and keeps each one short.

Say the limit first. getPNG removes a background, and nothing more. It does not repair a damaged picture, it does not know what a newspaper or a printer will accept, and it does not decide what is appropriate for your family. The people who are printing the picture set the size and the format, so ask them first.

Ask first, then choose

A single message to the funeral director, the newspaper or the person laying out the programme saves a second attempt. Ask three things:

• The file. Which file types they take, and whether they want the picture by email, through an upload form or on paper.
• The size. The width and height it will be printed at, or the pixel size they want. If they do not know, ask for the width in inches or centimetres.
• The background. Whether it should be left as it is, or whether a plain one is preferred. Many do not mind, and some publications crop tightly and ignore the background altogether.

If nobody answers in time, send the largest, sharpest version you have and say so. A big file can always be made smaller by the printer; a small one cannot be made larger without losing something.

Choose the picture

The picture people remember is rarely the most formal one. These are worth looking for:

• A clear face. Eyes open, looking roughly at the camera, with nothing across the face. A hat brim, sunglasses or a hand over the mouth make a picture hard to use, however much you like it.
• Even light. Daylight from a window or open shade, rather than a flash that flattens the face or hard sun that puts a shadow across the eyes.
• Recognisable. Recent enough to look like the person as most people knew them. A picture from twenty years ago may be a favourite, and may also puzzle readers who met them later.
• The original file. A photo forwarded through a messaging app is smaller and more compressed than the one on the phone it came from. Ask whoever took it to send the file itself, or find it in a cloud backup, because the edges of a face and hair need real pixels.
• A printed photo, photographed or scanned properly. If the only copy is on paper, a flat-bed scanner is best. Without one, put the photo on a table by a window, take the picture from directly above so the edges are square, and move so that no glare sits on the print.

Several candidates are better than one. Put them side by side at the size of a postage stamp, which is nearer to how many people will see a newspaper photo, and see which one is still clearly the person.

Crop to the face

A newspaper or a programme page shows the picture small, so a crop that fills the frame with the face reads best.

• Head and shoulders is the usual shape, with the eyes about a third of the way down from the top.
• Leave a little space above the head and beside the shoulders. The printer may trim, and a tight crop that is trimmed further cuts into the hair.
• Crop out other people. If a group photo is the only good one, crop to one person first. A part of somebody’s shoulder at the edge is a small problem; a stranger’s face is a bigger one.
• Keep it upright. A photo taken on a tilt can be straightened in any editor before you crop.

Crop in the editor you already use, or in a phone’s photo app, and keep the cropped picture at the size it came out. Do not resize it down at this stage.

Quiet the background if it distracts

Most photographs do not need this. A family snapshot with a garden or a room behind it is often just right, and shows the person as they were. A swap is worth doing when the background gets in the way:

• A cluttered or bright background pulls the eye from the face, and in a small newspaper picture it turns into noise.
• Other people or objects sit close behind the person, such as a stranger’s head or a lamp that appears to grow from the shoulder.
• A strong colour cast, such as the green of a lawn, spills onto skin and looks odd in black and white.

For any of these, drop the photo on getPNG and put a plain colour behind the person. Choose a soft, mid-tone colour such as a light grey or a pale warm neutral, and shrink the preview to thumbnail size to see how it will look in print. For a picture that will be printed in black and white, a mid grey gives the most even result. The guide to headshot background colours goes through the choice by hair colour, and the graduation photo guide deals with a person in a cap and gown.

The edges to look at

Look at three places in the compare view, slowly, at full size:

• The hair. Fine, light or grey hair against a dark background keeps a faint trace of the old colour. The soft pixels are kept soft because that is what a hair edge is, so a pale rim shows up on a dark background. Move to a lighter colour, or use Clean edge colour to take the old background out of those pixels.
• The collar and shoulders. A shirt that is close to the colour of the old wall may lose part of its edge. Paint it back with the brush, or rub out any background the model kept.
• Glasses. Clear lenses can keep a patch of the old background behind them. Look at the eyes in particular, and rub out anything that does not belong.

If an old or scanned photo is grainy or faded, the model has less to follow and these edges deserve a closer look. A cutout is a change to the background and to nothing else: scratches, creases and fading remain, and a photo restoration tool is the right answer for them.

Check the size before you send it

A picture can look sharp on a phone and print badly, because a screen needs far fewer pixels than paper. The test is arithmetic. A print wants about 300 pixels for every inch of its width, so a picture 1,200 pixels wide is fine at 4 inches and soft at 8. The guide to DPI explained has the sums, and what an enlargement can and cannot do covers a photo that is smaller than the print needs.

• A recent phone photo is almost always big enough, and a cutout is saved at the size you started with, so nothing is lost by clearing the background.
• A scan or an old digital photo is often small. If it is far below what the printer asked for, enlarge it with the upscaler, which offers a model and a plain resampling option that invents nothing. For a face, look closely at the result against the original and prefer whichever still looks like the person.
• A screenshot or a photo of a photo has fewer pixels than it seems. Go back to the original if there is one.

Do not make the file smaller to fit an email unless the printer asks. Send the largest version you have, or split it across two messages, and say what it is.

Under pressure: the short version

If the deadline is close, do these in order and stop when the picture is good enough:

1. Send the message asking for the size and file type.
2. Pick one clear picture and find its original file.
3. Crop to head and shoulders with a margin.
4. Clear the background only if something distracting sits behind the person.
5. Check the pixel width against the print size.
6. Send the file at its full size, and keep the original beside it.

A cutout of a person is a clear picture of a face, and most online background removers upload it to a server. getPNG processes it in the browser and the photo is never sent anywhere, which matters more than usual for a picture like this. The guide on whether it is safe to upload photos online compares what popular tools say in their own policies.

An obituary photo is there to be recognised. Choose the picture that looks like the person, change as little as you need to, and let the people printing it tell you the rest.

The steps, in short

1. Ask what the programme or newspaper needs. Find out the file type, the size and whether a plain background is wanted. Whoever is printing it decides, and one message saves a second attempt.
2. Choose the picture. Pick a clear, well lit photo of the face that people would recognise. Look for the original file, and for a printed photo, a flat scan or a straight-on picture taken in daylight.
3. Crop to head and shoulders. Leave a little space above the head and round the shoulders so the printer has room to trim, and keep the face centred.
4. Quiet the background if it distracts. Drop the photo on getPNG, put a plain colour behind the person and check the hair and shoulders in the compare view. Skip this if the background is already calm.
5. Check the size and send the file. Count the pixels against the printed size, and send the original-size file in the format the printer asked for.

Questions

What makes a good obituary photo?

A clear picture of the face that people would recognise: eyes open, looking roughly at the camera, in even light, and recent enough to look like the person they knew. A relaxed, natural expression usually works better than a formal one, and the best choice is often a sharp snapshot rather than a studio portrait.

Can I use a photo that has other people in it?

Yes, by cropping or by cutting the person out. Crop first, because it keeps the picture honest. If somebody else's shoulder or hand is still in the frame, a cutout can remove the background and the rest of the scene, and the brush lets you rub out any part it kept. Check the edge by the neck and shoulder in the compare view.

Can I change the background of an old or scanned photo?

Usually, yes. A scan of a printed photo is a picture like any other, and a plain background can be put behind the person. Fine detail in a faded or grainy photo is harder for the model to follow, so look closely at the hair and the collar. A cutout does not repair scratches, fading or damage; that is a job for a photo restoration tool.

Will an old photo be big enough to print?

Count the pixels. A print needs about 300 pixels for every inch of its width, so a picture 1,200 pixels wide is fine at 4 inches and soft at 8. A small or low resolution picture can be enlarged, and the upscaler has a model and a plain resampling option. Look at the face afterwards, because an enlarged picture should still look like the person.

What size does a newspaper want for an obituary photo?

It differs from one paper to the next, and often from one section to the next, so there is no single answer to give. Ask the paper or the funeral director for the size and file type, or look at the instructions on the page where notices are submitted. getPNG keeps the pixel size of your photo and does not guess at a publisher's rules.

Is it all right to edit a photo of someone who has died?

That is for the family to decide, and the usual practice is to change as little as possible. Clearing a distracting background, or cropping, leaves the face as it was. Take care with anything that changes the person's appearance, and keep the original file.