Portraits are some of the most rewarding Wplace conversions because they feel personal immediately. They are also some of the easiest to get wrong. A face that looks good in a full-size photo can lose its identity quickly when it is translated into a limited palette and a smaller grid. Eyes can drift, shadows can flatten, and skin tones can become a block of almost identical colors. The good news is that portraits follow a few predictable rules. If you respect those rules, you can keep the face recognizable without trying to preserve every tiny detail. ## Start with the face, not the hair or clothes When converting a portrait, the most important part is the face. Viewers recognize people through the structure of the eyes, nose, mouth, and overall head shape long before they notice clothing texture or background details. That means your first pass should focus on: - Eye placement - Head outline - Nose shape - Mouth position - Jaw and chin line Hair and clothing can support the image, but they should not dominate it unless they are the main visual feature. A bold hairstyle might matter. A detailed shirt pattern usually does not. ## Use a medium pixel size first Portraits rarely work best at the smallest possible pixel size. Extremely fine grids can preserve more detail, but they also make the face harder to paint and increase the chance of visual noise. For most portrait conversions, start in the middle: - Small enough to keep facial features - Large enough to keep the structure readable - Simple enough that the result can be painted by hand without endless corrections Once you have a medium baseline, you can decide whether to go smaller for detail or larger for simplicity. ## Simplify facial shading Faces often contain many subtle shifts in tone. Those shifts are lovely in a photo, but they can be a problem in pixel form. Too many similar shades around the cheeks, forehead, and chin can make the portrait feel muddy instead of dimensional. Try to reduce the shading into a few useful zones: - Light area for the main face plane - Medium tone for the midface - Darker tone for under the chin, hairline, or side shadow - Accent tone for the strongest features This does not mean the portrait has to look flat. It means the shading should have a clear purpose. Every extra tone should earn its place by improving the shape, not by adding complexity for its own sake. ## Keep the eyes readable The eyes are often the first place where a portrait fails. If the eye area gets too small or too noisy, the face loses its focus immediately. To protect the eyes: - Avoid shrinking the image too far - Keep the eye whites and iris shapes distinct if they matter - Preserve the eyelid line or eyebrow shape when possible - Do not let hair shadows swallow the eye region If necessary, sacrifice detail elsewhere before you sacrifice the eyes. A simpler shirt or background is usually a better trade than a face with unrecognizable eyes. ## Watch the mouth and nose The nose and mouth usually need less detail than people expect. Overworking those features can make the portrait look strange because small changes in shape become exaggerated in pixel form. For the nose: - Keep the overall placement - Use one or two tones to indicate depth - Avoid over-drawing nostrils unless the image is intentionally stylized For the mouth: - Focus on the line and overall expression - Keep it simple unless the lips are a major feature - Make sure the mouth does not disappear into the skin tone The goal is expression, not anatomical precision. ## Decide how much hair you really need Hair can help a portrait feel recognizable, but it can also become a large field of noise if you try to preserve every strand. In most cases, it is better to think of hair as a shape rather than a texture. Useful questions: - Does the hairstyle form a strong outline? - Is there a specific part or fringe that identifies the subject? - Can the hair be simplified into a few mass shapes? If the hair is curly, layered, or highly textured, do not try to preserve every detail. Keep the silhouette and the major contrast shifts. That will usually read better on the canvas than a noisy mass of tiny color changes. ## Crop the portrait tightly Portraits benefit from a tight crop because every pixel matters. If you leave too much empty space around the head, the face becomes smaller than it needs to be and loses detail. Try to frame the portrait so that: - The face occupies most of the image - The head is centered or intentionally placed - There is enough breathing room for hair or shoulders, but not so much that they compete with the face A tighter crop usually gives the converter more useful information to work with. ## Preserve expression over perfect likeness A portrait does not have to be photo-realistic to feel like the person. In many cases, preserving the expression matters more than preserving exact tonal accuracy. If you must choose, keep: - The direction of the gaze - The tilt of the head - The smile, frown, or neutral mood - The strongest contrast around the eyes and mouth Those are the parts that people notice first. If the expression survives, the portrait usually feels successful even if some tiny details change. ## Use the preview to check balance The preview is where portrait mistakes reveal themselves quickly. Look for: - Eyes that are too low or too high - A nose that blends into the face - Hair that becomes a dark blob - Shadows that crush the lower half of the face - A mouth that disappears at the chosen scale If any of those issues show up, adjust the pixel size or simplify the source image before trying to force the converter to fix them. ## A practical portrait workflow Here is a workflow that works well for most faces: 1. Crop tightly around the subject. 2. Set a medium pixel size. 3. Check that the eyes are clear. 4. Simplify the background. 5. Reduce extra shading in the cheeks and forehead. 6. Re-export and compare the result with the original. This keeps the process controlled. You are not trying to preserve everything. You are trying to preserve the parts that make the portrait feel alive. ## The main idea Portrait conversion is mostly about prioritizing the face. If the eyes, expression, and overall head shape survive, the rest can be simplified much more aggressively than you might expect. That is what makes the piece readable on the canvas and still enjoyable to paint.