How to take the perfect headshot photo
Lighting, angles, and simple habits that make your training photos and your AI headshots look their best.
Your AI headshot begins long before you press “generate”. It starts with the few photos you upload to train your model. A small set of well-lit, natural selfies gives Framecast everything it needs to learn your face, your expressions, and the angles that suit you best. Here is how to capture them like a professional, with no studio, no fancy camera, and no photographer.
The best training photos aren’t the most posed; they’re the most consistent.
Start with soft, even light
Lighting matters more than any other factor. Harsh overhead light throws shadows across your eyes, while a dark room makes your camera compensate with noise and blur. The easiest professional trick is to stand beside a window and face it. Daylight is soft, free, and incredibly flattering; it gently wraps your face instead of flattening it.
A few lighting ground rules
- Face your light source, and never sit with the window behind you
- Shoot at eye level with a ring light or desk lamp if it’s evening
- Avoid mixing colour temperatures, like a warm lamp with a cool screen
- Diffuse strong sunlight with a thin curtain or sheet of paper
Angles, framing, and your best face
Hold your phone at eye level or slightly higher and tilt your chin a little. Shooting from below is rarely flattering, and very close crops push your lens into wide-angle distortion. Frame your shoulders and leave a little space above your head so the final crop feels natural and consistent across every photo in your set.
Keep the whole set consistent
Your model learns from consistency. A range of small expressions is brilliant; wild swings in lighting, hairstyle, or distance are not. Aim for 4–10 photos that could have been taken on the same afternoon.
- 1Pick a plain background so nothing distracts the AI
- 2Keep the camera roughly an arm’s length away in every shot
- 3Try a few small expressions: smile, neutral, relaxed
- 4Skip heavy filters and beauty modes that flatten your skin
- 5Review each photo and delete anything even slightly blurry
Upload your best 8, and Framecast trains a private model built around your face in about 15 minutes.
Once your set is ready, open the dashboard, upload your photos, and let Framecast do the rest. In around fifteen minutes you’ll have a personal model that can drop you into dozens of studio-quality styles, from professional and creative to seasonal and everything in between, without ever booking a camera.
New here? Start with our guide to what to wear, then explore the style packs in the dashboard and generate your first set.
