Which photo works best for a Movoji AI video

Light the face, not the background

Soft, even daylight in front of the face is the safest choice: window light, an overcast day, a bright room. Strong backlight turns the face into a silhouette, and the model has little to work with. Direct overhead sun and hard flash create shadows under the eyes and nose that survive into the video.

Shoot straight on, at eye level

A photo taken at eye level, face pointing at the camera, maps most cleanly onto the template’s framing. Extreme angles — shooting up from below, a high selfie angle, a profile shot — force the model to invent the rest of the head, and that is where faces start to drift.

Mirror selfies where the phone covers part of the face are a common cause of odd results. Ask someone to take the photo, or use a timer.

Keep the head and shoulders in frame

Include the top of the head and both shoulders, with a little space around them. A tightly cropped face leaves no room for the template’s camera movement, and a crop that cuts the chin makes the proportions guesswork.

A plain wall or a soft background keeps attention on the face. Busy backgrounds are not fatal, but they add detail the model has to reconcile with the template clip.

Skip filters, sunglasses and hats

Heavy beauty filters smooth away the features the model uses to keep the same person across frames, and the result often looks like a different face. Sunglasses hide the eyes; wide-brimmed hats and masks cover the face outline.

Ordinary glasses are usually fine. So are everyday expressions — a slight smile reads better on a loop than a stiff pose.

Resolution and format

Send the original file rather than a screenshot of it. Uploads can be up to 10 MB in JPEG, PNG or WebP, which is far more than a phone photo needs.

One person per photo for one-photo templates: a second face in the background confuses which person should be replaced.