Bad Photos - Hall of Shame

The Basics

Are they puppies? Kittens? Sea lions? It's the Trifecta of bad pet photos: blurry, bad lighting, and bad color (and this is the corrected version!)

In many ways placing a dog or cat on Pet Savers is like placing a personals ad. Among other things, if you're hot you're a lot more likely to get picked-up... even if your personality is lacking. With animals this means get a good picture!

We get a LOT of pictures here at Pet Savers and we thought it would be fun to post some of the best of the worst, and at the same time use them to explain how to get a good photo.

Basic rules for good photos are as follows:

• Make sure they're big enough. If they're smaller than the photos you're seeing on Pet Savers, they are NOT big enough. It's much easier to work with an image that is too big than with one that is too small.
• Make sure the lighting is decent. Sunlight + Grassy Field usually equals a decent photo.
• The animal should take up most of the photo.
• Most Pet Savers photos are cropped to be square. Remember this.
• Make sure the animal looks cute and/or happy. You're probably not going to ask someone out who looks angry and most people don't want a pet who looks angry.
• On the other hand, if the animal is male and he's REALLY happy, that's not the best shot either...
• No facial amputations. Make sure the dog or cat has all of his or her parts... ears, forehead... nose.
• No demonic possession. Red (or green or yellow) eye is kinda scary and freaky.
• Focus focus focus. And did I mention focus?

Runners-up by category

Most of these are the Photoshopped versions of the photos that were sent in.

Special Mention

There are a few things that you really should not ever see in a pet photo...

Wait. There's a dog in the photo?

It's supposed to be "junk yard dog," not "yard dog junk."

Too Small

The winner here is obvious.

Facial Amputees

Ouch

Evil

I'm scared of all three...

Red Eye

My goal is to get a rainbow of "red eye."

Red "Who's the little demon puppy? Who's evil? Yes you are!"	Blue "I see your soul.   Can I play with it?"
Yellow "Pet me now. Or else."	Green "I'm not scary, just slightly radioactive."
Orange This one is much prettier up close Kind of a sunset-gradient
Two-Tone: Part 1 Pink AND Yellow! Nice!	Two-Tone: Part 2 Two different color eyes, two colors of "red-eye!" Awesome!

Strangled

ACKK!!!

Blurry Cam

Bad Lighting Levels