Use this practical source-photo checklist before personalising a storybook: one person, a clear unobstructed face, natural light, useful body context and no strong beauty filters.
Last reviewed July 25, 2026
Use one clear photograph containing exactly one primary person. Their face should be in focus and unobstructed, with the eyes, hairline, jaw and natural skin tone easy to inspect. Natural light and a waist-up or full-body view are more useful than a tightly cropped, filtered portrait.
Use one photograph for one person and one declared role.
Choose clarity and natural colour over a polished studio portrait.
Include enough body context to understand age and build.
A group photo is not the primary identity source for multiple roles.
You do not need a professional portrait. A recent phone photograph can be useful when it shows the person clearly, in focus and under light that preserves their real colouring. A relaxed expression and ordinary pose are preferable to heavy styling.
The photograph is used to understand identity, not to recreate the original background. A simple home setting is fine. What matters is that the person—not a filter, shadow or object—is easy to inspect.
Exactly one primary person is visible.
The face, eyes, hairline and jaw are unobstructed.
The image is sharp enough to retain identity detail.
Lighting keeps skin and hair colour believable.
The crop includes useful waist-up or full-body context.
There is no strong beauty filter or face reshaping.
A photograph can feel lovely as a family memory and still be a poor identity reference. Sunglasses, a turned face, severe compression, dramatic coloured light or another overlapping face can remove the details needed to separate one person from another.
Very tight passport-style crops can also remove useful information about age, build and proportions. At the other extreme, a person who occupies only a tiny part of the frame may not contain enough facial detail.
The face is tiny, turned away or hidden.
Blur or compression has removed facial detail.
Hands, hair, sunglasses or objects cover key features.
Strong coloured light changes skin or hair.
Another face overlaps the primary person.
The file is a screenshot or collage with uncertain quality.
Every required person is assigned to a specific story role. Separate source photographs keep that mapping unambiguous and give each identity enough visual information. For a child-and-parent story, that means one child photograph and one parent photograph—not a single family photograph used for both.
A group image may sometimes help a production team understand relative height or a relationship, but it should not be the only identity source unless a specific edition explicitly supports that exception.
The uploaded photograph helps establish who the character is. The authored illustration determines what that character is doing. A school uniform in the source photo does not mean the character will wear it in every scene, and a broad smile does not force the same expression into a quiet story moment.
This separation is intentional. It allows the identity to remain recognisable while the character participates naturally in each authored scene rather than appearing as a pasted photograph.
Zoom in once. Can you clearly see the eyes, hairline, jaw and natural skin tone? Zoom out. Is there enough context to understand age and build? Then check that there is only one primary person and no strong filter.
If you are uncertain, ask the studio before sending the file. You do not need to email a child’s photograph merely to ask whether a type of image is suitable.
One person.
Face visible.
Natural colour.
In focus.
Useful body context.
No strong filter.
Editorial record
Review scope: Source-photo and separate-role requirements
Yoopbook · first-party-source · checked July 28, 2026
Defines Yoopbook’s sourcing, correction, review and product-truth boundaries.
Yoopbook · product-truth · checked July 28, 2026
Records the current public limits and permission requirements for photographs.
Continue with confidence
The selected edition tells you which roles—and therefore how many separate photographs—it requires.
Choose a story before preparing photos