How to photograph someone for a 3D printed bust
Eight photographs, ten minutes and a phone. What to shoot, what to avoid, and why the lighting matters more than the camera.
The likeness of a printed bust is decided before anything reaches a printer. It is decided by the photographs you send. Good ones take about ten minutes and a phone; bad ones cost a round of revisions and still end up slightly wrong.
Here is exactly what to take.
How many photographs do you need?
Eight, at minimum, all from the same distance and in the same light:
- Straight on, face level with the camera
- Left profile, a full ninety degrees
- Right profile, a full ninety degrees
- Three-quarter left — halfway between front and profile
- Three-quarter right
- From slightly above, looking down at maybe thirty degrees
- From slightly below, looking up
- The back of the head
Six and seven are the ones people skip, and they are the ones that fix the shape of the skull. Without them the model is a guess in the vertical axis.
Does the camera matter?
Barely. Any phone from the last five years exceeds what we need. What matters far more is light, distance and consistency.
Light. Stand near a window on an overcast day, or outside in open shade. Avoid direct sun — it carves hard shadows that read as facial features and get modelled as such. Avoid overhead ceiling lights for the same reason. Never use flash; it flattens everything the model needs to see.
Distance. Stand back about two metres and zoom in rather than holding the phone close. Phone lenses are wide, and a close-up enlarges the nose and shrinks the ears — the same reason selfies never quite look like you.
Consistency. Same spot, same light, same distance for all eight. Move around the person rather than asking them to turn, if you can.
What should the subject do?
Very little, which is the hard part.
- Neutral expression, mouth closed. A smile is a moment; a bust is permanent, and a printed grin ages badly on a shelf.
- Hair back from the face. Ears and hairline visible if possible. Hair is the least reliable thing to reconstruct, and a fringe hides the forehead entirely.
- No glasses, unless you specifically want them on the finished piece — say so, and take a second set with them on.
- Plain background. A blank wall. Busy backgrounds make it harder to separate the silhouette.
- Look at the lens in the front shot, and straight ahead in the profiles rather than at the camera.
What if the person is not available?
It happens more than you would think — memorial pieces, surprises, gifts for someone abroad. Send what exists.
Existing photographs can work if they meet three conditions: reasonably high resolution, more than one angle, and consistent enough lighting that the same face is recognisable across them. A single front-facing photo is not enough for a true likeness, though it can be enough for a stylised piece. Tell us which you want and we will be honest about what is achievable before taking the order.
Can you work from a 3D scan?
Yes, and it is the most accurate input available. Recent iPhone and iPad Pro models with LiDAR produce scans that are more than good enough, and several free apps will export one.
A scan is not required, and photographs remain the normal route. But if you have access to one, send it alongside the photos rather than instead of them — the scan gives us geometry, the photographs give us the detail.
What happens after you send them?
3DOME Malta builds the model and sends you a render before anything is printed. You look at it, tell us what is wrong — the jaw is too heavy, the nose is not quite right — and we adjust. Changes at that stage cost nothing and are part of the process.
Only once you approve the render does it go on the printer. That is deliberate: a printed bust that does not look like the person is worthless, and the cheapest moment to fix it is before it exists.