The shots
The gray-card method's shot list, and how the card goes wrong.
This is the gray-card method's shot list — headshots ×3 (chest-up, square, neutral, eyes on lens) · gray card at chin ×2 · eye close-up (6–8 in, iris tack-sharp) · inner wrist + card on the sill. Paper/raw/quick sessions have their own, shorter lists, shown live during capture — none of them ask for a card.
Two optional shots worth taking: hair roots (crown close-up) and a side profile. For the profile, turn 45–90° to the side, hair off the face. It captures the angles a straight-on photo can't see (facial convexity, nasofrontal, nasolabial, nose projection). Skip them and everything else still works.
Card handling
| Mistake | What it looks like | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Card tilted toward the light | a sheen or bright gradient across the card | tilt a few degrees until the surface looks evenly matte |
| Card tilted away | card darker than expected, muddy | flat toward the lens. It should look like one even gray |
| Card held out toward the window | card looks clean but the skin correction comes out wrong | the card must sit in the SAME light as your face: at the chin, in the face plane |
| Fingers over the gray patch / head shadowing it | partial darkening | grip by the edge, check nothing shades it |
Facial hair (house guidance)
Skin gets sampled from the forehead, upper cheeks, and jaw above the beard line. Never through stubble, which reads gray-blue and cools the sample. A full beard is treated like hair: trace it as hair if it's a defining feature, exclude it from skin boxes either way. Keep the same shave state across sessions.