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Which Photos Make the Best Coloring Pages?

Updated October 21, 2026

What works best

• Faces that fill the photo. A close-up of one or two people gives the drawing the most to work with, so faces come out clear and recognizable.
• Good light. Daylight, or a bright room, with faces out of deep shadow.
• One clear moment. A hug, a birthday cake, a first day of school, a day at the beach. Simple scenes make pages that are fun to color.
• Pets. Dogs and cats turn into great pages, fur and all.
• Old family photos. Prints from years ago, even black-and-white or faded ones, can make lovely pages. Scan them, or photograph them flat in good light without glare.

What gives weaker pages

• Tiny, faraway faces. When a face is only a few pixels wide, the drawing has to guess, and it may not look like the person.
• Very dark or blurry photos. Details that are hard to see in the photo are hard to draw.
• Very big groups. A photo of fifteen people still works, but every face is small, so the page is harder for little hands to color. Mix in some close-ups.
• Words and logos. Writing on shirts and signs is usually cleaned off the page, because a letter drawn wrong looks worse than none.

How many photos to choose

A book takes 5 to 30 photos, and every photo becomes its own page. A good mix is mostly close-ups, plus a few big moments like a holiday or a trip, so there are easy pages and detailed ones.

If a face comes out wrong

Press Redraw on that page. It is free, up to 2 times a page, and you keep both versions to choose from. When you redraw because of a face, the drawing also gets a close-up of the faces from your photo, so it can get them right.

Questions