Best Photos for AI Runway Videos
EDITORIAL GUIDE · UPDATEDChoose a clear portrait with a visible face, even lighting and room around the shoulders.
Use a clear single-person photo
Choose one consenting adult. The face should be sharp enough to see without guessing from a thumbnail. Do not use children, a group photo or a public figure’s image as a shortcut to a different identity. A file passing technical validation is only ready for preparation; it is not a quality guarantee.
Keep your face visible
Avoid sunglasses, hands over the face, hair across both eyes and strong motion blur. A straightforward angle makes the intended identity easier to interpret than an extreme profile. Do not rely on heavy face filters to supply missing detail. Keep visible characteristics consistent with the person in the authorized image.
Lighting and framing
Prefer even natural light and a simple background. Strong backlighting and deep shadows can obscure important details. Leave some space around the head and shoulders rather than cropping tightly to the eyes. Keep the face and shoulders clear; follow any additional framing requirements shown by the selected workflow.
Photos to avoid
Avoid screenshots with text over the face, severely compressed images and files that have only been renamed into a supported extension. The current local preparation checker accepts JPG, PNG and WebP, up to 10 MB, with a longest side between 512 and 6000 pixels. It checks file signatures and actual decoding. A damaged or mismatched file should be exported again from the original image.
Replace a photo before creating
Use Replace photo to choose another file, or Remove photo to clear the local draft for the current look. The selected photo is a local browser draft and is not uploaded to a provider during this preparation step. The sample portrait shown in the how-to guide is a synthetic adult example, not proof that every accepted photo produces the same quality. Drafts expire after 30 minutes, and account changes clear private drafts according to the account isolation rules. Selecting a different look uses its own draft. Review permission before continuing to sign-in.
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