Skip to content
MemorialPrintKit

FAQ and troubleshooting

Grouped by where you are when you get stuck, rather than by topic. If your question is not here, ask it — that is how the list grows.

Before you start

What does this actually do?
It turns one photograph into files a print shop can print. First it tells you the largest size that photograph can be printed at cleanly. Then it lifts the person away from whatever is behind them, crops the portrait for every standard frame size from one framing decision, and gives you a ZIP with the correct pixel dimensions and DPI in every file.
Is the photograph uploaded?
No. Every step runs inside your own browser. There is no server that receives the image, so there is nothing that could keep a copy of it even by accident. Once the page and the software behind it have loaded, the check, the cleanup and the crops keep working with the internet disconnected.

Opening the photograph

It will not open my photograph.
JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC and HEIF all open, including HEIC straight off an iPhone. What does not open is a PDF, a Word document, a RAW camera file, or a photograph that is still inside a message thread rather than saved to the computer. If it is in a text message or an email, save it to the desktop first and choose it from there.
The pixel dimensions look smaller than I expected.
The file has probably been through something that re-encodes it. Facebook keeps a copy no larger than 2048 pixels on the long edge, and older uploads are often 960. WhatsApp sends about 1600 unless the sender picks HD or sends the photo as a document. A picture texted by MMS often arrives around 640, and a screenshot is limited by the screen rather than the photograph. The original is usually still intact on the phone of whoever took it.
The photograph came in rotated the wrong way.
The rotation stored in the file is applied the way a printer applies it, which is occasionally not the way your own photo app displays it. If it comes in the wrong way round, rotate it in your photo app, save a copy, and open that instead — a rotation baked into the pixels is unambiguous to every printer.
Is there a file size limit?
Not a fixed one. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine — a very large scan on an older phone can run out of memory. If it stalls, try it on a laptop or desktop rather than a phone.

The print-size check

Why is the DPI lower than pixels divided by inches?
Because the crop comes off first. A phone sensor is 3:4 and an 8x10 frame is 4:5, so something has to be cut from the top and bottom before the print is made, and the check reports what survives the crop rather than the raw long edge. That figure is a little lower than a plain DPI calculator gives you, and it is the one the paper actually receives.
What is the difference between the 300 and 200 DPI columns?
300 DPI is the standard a print shop means by print resolution, and it is what a program or anything else held at reading distance needs. 200 DPI is genuinely acceptable for something seen from a few feet away, which includes the easel print and the memorial board. Below about 150 DPI softness becomes visible at any distance.
Can it enlarge a photograph that is too small?
If the photograph is smaller than the size you need, it can be enlarged in your browser before the print files are cut. The enlargement is a general super-resolution pass — it reconstructs edges and texture rather than stretching pixels — and in practice it buys about one step up the size list: a photograph that was honest at 8x10 is usually acceptable at 11x14 afterwards. An enlarged print is softer than one made from a photograph that was large enough to begin with, and it is still a print worth putting on the easel. It is reported as its own figure, next to a before-and-after you can judge with your own eyes, and it is never folded into the free print-size check. It is worth running when the size you need is one step above what the check allows; a photograph that checks out at 5x7 will not become a good 20x24.
Every size came back red. Is that it?
No. It means the sizes on the list are larger than the photograph can do at full sharpness. Two things help: the enlargement, which is worth about one step up the size list, and choosing the frame to match what the photograph can do rather than the other way round. Between them a red row often becomes a print worth having. There is a full answer at /answers/the-only-photo-is-too-small, including the places a larger original usually turns up.

Cleaning up the background

The edge is wrong around the hair.
That is what the brush is for. Hair is the hardest edge in any photograph and the automatic pass gets most of it; painting over the part it missed fixes it in a few strokes, and the brush works in both directions — add back what was cut away, or remove what was left behind.
It cut out the wrong person.
The automatic pass looks for the main subject, so in a photograph of two people it may choose the other one, and in a group photograph it often takes several. Use the brush to remove what you do not want. If most of the frame is other people, crop to the person first in your own photo app and open that copy instead. It is quicker than brushing.
Can I keep the original background of the photograph?
No. The person is always lifted out, and what goes behind them is your choice: nothing, which prints as white paper; a plain color; one of the 8 ready-made backgrounds (lake at sunset, mountain sunrise, soft clouds, forest light, autumn woods, candle, morning meadow, river light), or an image of your own. If the original setting is part of the picture and you want it kept, this is the wrong tool for that photograph, and cropping it in your own photo app is the better move.
Can I get a transparent PNG?
Yes. Leave the background set to "Nothing", which is the default, and every print file is a PNG with a transparent background, cropped to its frame size. Printed on white paper, the background comes out white. There is no separate full-photograph cut-out download, because the print files are what this is built to produce.

The files, and paying

What exactly does paying remove?
Everything works before you pay. $12 once removes the watermark and unlocks the full-resolution files for the photograph you bought it for. It covers the one photograph you bought it for. A second photograph is a second purchase.
Which payment methods work?
Whatever Stripe’s checkout page offers you: cards, and in many countries wallets such as Apple Pay or Google Pay. Card details are entered on Stripe’s own page and never touch this site.
I paid. Is there a license key or a receipt to keep?
There is no license key. Paying unlocks that photograph in the browser you paid in. The watermark comes off within a few seconds, and there is no account, password or license key to keep. The payment is tied to that exact file, so a re-saved or re-downloaded copy of the same picture counts as a different photograph. To use the clean files on another computer, download the ZIP where you paid and copy it across. If you need a receipt for the payment, get in touch using the email address you paid with.
I paid, but the watermark is still there.
A payment unlocks the one file it was bought for, so the usual cause is a different file. Even the same picture re-saved or re-downloaded is a different file to the check that binds the two. Open the photograph you paid for, in the browser you paid in, and the watermark comes off. If it is definitely the same file, get in touch and it will be sorted out.
I need the clean files on another computer.
Download the ZIP on the computer you paid on and copy it across by email, a USB stick or a shared folder. The files are ordinary PNGs and need nothing from this site to open. A payment is remembered only in the browser it was made in, so opening the photograph on a second computer shows the watermark again. If you cannot get back to the first computer, get in touch using the email address you paid with.
Will the print shop accept these files?
Almost always. Each file is a PNG at the exact pixel dimensions its size needs, named for that size, with the DPI written into the file as well as into the name. Most photo labs print whatever size you order; the DPI field matters when a printer or a layout program sizes the picture from the file, and a file without one is often read as 72 DPI. Colour conversion is left to the lab, which is what labs expect. If a lab only takes JPEG, open the PNG in any photo app and save a copy as a high-quality JPEG.
Which file in the ZIP do I send them?
The one named for the size you are ordering. The ZIP has one file per size and a read-me listing what each is, so you can hand the whole thing to a print counter and point at a line.

When something is broken

Something is not working. What is useful to send?
Which browser and which device, what you did, and what happened instead. A screenshot beats a description. Do not send the photograph — it is not needed to diagnose anything and it should stay on your computer.
I am out of time and this is not working.
Get in touch and say so. If the tool is failing on your photograph, the answer may be a straight one that does not involve the tool at all.