Questions

The ones that actually come up, in the order they tend to come up in. If yours isn't here, it's one short email away.

Before you start

What do I actually get?

Choose a design, upload a photo, and pick from that design’s cover wording. You’ll see your own watermarked cover preview before deciding whether to buy it, and you can add an optional personal note inside.

Your purchase includes the exact illustrated cover as a 1500 × 2100 PNG without the preview watermark, plus a separate note PNG if you added one. The private delivery page lets you open, save, and share the card. We also email the link, which stays active for up to 30 days. Save the cover and any note to keep them.

How are these actually made?

Plainly, because it matters: we develop and test the visual direction for each card, then use AI image tools with card-specific prompts and settings.

The design direction is finished before you arrive, but your card is not a face pasted into an existing picture. The model rebuilds that chosen design around the person in your photo, and we keep only directions that hold up consistently. Nothing here is described as hand-drawn.

See how we design and test each card before it reaches the shop.

Could I just make one myself with an AI image tool?

You could. You would also be taking on the design work: choosing a style, describing it clearly, deciding on the composition and wording, and judging whether each result feels right. If the likeness, layout, or lettering is off, you need to work out what to change and try again. A new attempt may improve one detail while changing another.

AI is part of our design workflow. We develop the illustration, composition, and wording as one idea, refine what doesn't work, and test each design with different people and photos before it reaches the shop. Those choices and adjustments are already part of the design you pick.

You bring the photo and the thought behind the card. We provide the design and wording choices, and you see your own finished card before deciding whether to buy it. If it doesn't feel right, you can leave it without paying.

Will it look like them?

It aims for recognition rather than exact portrait accuracy. Hair, glasses, clothing, posture, and the setting may carry more of the likeness than exact facial detail.

Results are not perfectly predictable, which is why you see the finished card before paying. If it does not feel right, you can leave it and try another photo.

What kind of photo works?

The short answer: upload a JPG, PNG, HEIC or HEIF file no larger than 20 MB. Most importantly, the intended person should stand out, recognizable facial features should be clear and the background should not be too busy. A useful subject matters more than a beautiful photograph. Follow the specific subject rule shown on the card you chose. Automatic cards may accept adults or children; the person submitting the photo must be 18 or older and have the right or permission to use it. If a child appears, the submitter must be their parent or legal guardian, or have permission from that parent or guardian.

Centering the person and letting them fill most of the frame usually helps. Waist-up or three-quarter framing is a recommendation, not a requirement: a close-up or full-body photo may still continue, but the finished likeness or composition can be less reliable.

Some covering is fine when recognizable facial features remain visible. Sunglasses, hair, scarves, high collars, hats, a hand or a partial side profile may hide detail and affect the result, but do not cause rejection by themselves. A back-turned head, a face fully outside the frame, a fully covered face or a photo where the check cannot confirm visible facial features will be rejected before generation.

What tends to disappoint:

The intended subject is very small or pushed to the edge of the frame
A busy background that competes with the person
Strong backlight, so the face is a silhouette
Heavy filters or beauty smoothing — the model has less to work from, not more
A very blurry face or a face turned almost completely away
A photograph that does not match the selected card's displayed subject rule

The automatic check is a practical filter, not a promise that the finished illustration will be perfect. Please look at the photo yourself as well. You still see the generated preview before deciding whether to pay.

How is a commission different from a shop card?

A shop card starts from a finished design direction, with photo and cover-wording choices plus an optional personal note inside. A Commission starts with an inquiry about something made from scratch and may include a person, couple, family, children, pets, a set, or commercial work.

Your commissioned design won’t later become a shop card for other customers to personalize. This promise applies to every commission, whether it’s one card, a set, or a project for your business.

Sending the form is not an order and does not start work or require payment. If the inquiry is a fit, scope, price, payment method, timing, revisions, delivery, permitted use, and cancellation terms are agreed in writing before work begins. The finished work stays private unless you separately choose to allow showcase use; that permission is for display only and never includes source photos or offering the design for sale.

Making one

Can I write my own note?

Yes. Once the cover preview is ready, you can add an optional note in your own words. The cover greeting and message still come from that design’s choices.

Write up to 400 characters and use Inside to check that the note fits, including any greeting or sign-off. Once secure payment starts, the note cannot be edited for that order.

Leave it blank to send only the cover. The sample text is not added to your card.

It said my photo won't work. Why?

A quick automatic check runs before the card is made. It can reject clear, fixable mismatches such as an unreadable file, almost no useful image detail, no suitable subject, a subject count that does not match the selected card, a subject too small for that design, or no facial features visible enough to work from. Close-up and full-body photographs are guidance risks rather than automatic rejection reasons. Limited covering may continue when facial features remain visible.

The check uses AI and is not perfect, so an unusual photo may be rejected incorrectly. Only a clear failure stops the upload; otherwise you continue directly to the card details. Usually the fix for a rejection is a different photograph rather than editing the rejected one.

It's the same photo as last time. What happens?

Send the same file through the same card and choose the same supported cover wording and options again, and the stored cover may be shown instead of being redrawn. You can still decide whether to buy that exact result.

The same photo with different supported cover wording or options, or on another card, is different work. The check recognizes the exact file, not the person in it.

A personal note is separate from the cover. Adding or editing it before secure payment starts does not redraw the illustration.

Can I ask for changes?

The shop’s illustration styles and layouts are fixed. You can choose the cover wording and other options offered by that design, then write or edit an optional personal note once the preview is ready. Adding a note does not change the cover artwork.

Review the note before starting secure payment. Once payment starts, that order’s note cannot be edited.

For a different composition, illustration style, wording built into the artwork, or subject arrangement beyond the design’s choices, ask about a Commission.

How long does it take, and what if it breaks?

Most previews take about one to two minutes. Keep the page open while the card is being made.

If the page says something went wrong, follow the action shown there. If it happens twice, email hello@fondandfold.com.

Buying and getting it

What does it cost?

USD 9.99 for the exact card you previewed, before any applicable sales tax. Dodo Payments shows the final total before you pay. In supported countries, checkout may show the amount in your local currency and let you switch back to USD.

An optional personal note is included at no extra charge. For shop cards, you never pay to look: you see the exact preview before deciding whether to buy it.

Can I pay in my local currency?

The card's base price is USD 9.99. Where Dodo Payments supports it, secure checkout may show your local currency by default and let you switch back to USD.

Dodo shows the final amount, including applicable tax and any currency-conversion fee, before you confirm payment. Available currencies and payment methods depend on your billing country, currency, device, and the payment provider's eligibility rules.

I closed the tab before buying. Can I see the result again?

From the same browser, while the unpaid result is still being kept (ordinarily up to 30 days), send the same complete cover input through the same card again: the same photo file and the same supported cover wording. The stored cover comes back without another generation, and you can decide whether to buy it.

An unsubmitted personal note is saved temporarily in the current tab and may be lost when the tab closes. Keep a separate copy of any words you want to save.

There is no account or unpaid-preview history page, and we cannot safely find an unpaid result from a person’s name or email alone. After a purchase, support can locate the paid order using the delivery email or order reference while the files remain available internally. Save the purchased cover and any note somewhere you’ll find them; your own copies are the certain ones. The Privacy page explains the recovery data.

The email hasn't arrived.

Check spam and your promotions tab first — a first transactional email containing a private link can still be filtered. The email contains a link, not image attachments. Open that link to see the cover and any personal note.

Still nothing? Write to hello@fondandfold.com from the address you used and include the order reference if you have it. We'll verify the paid order and help recover the exact file while it remains available internally. If you paid and never got the file, that gets fixed, not argued about.

Can I get a refund?

For an automatic card: you see the exact watermarked result before paying, so a change of mind or subjective disappointment is normally not refundable after the unwatermarked file is delivered. This does not affect remedies for a duplicate charge, non-delivery, a corrupt, wrong, or still-watermarked file, or a card that materially differs from the preview purchased. Email hello@fondandfold.com.

Dodo Payments is the merchant of record, and its Buyer Terms and refund process also apply. Nothing here removes rights that cannot be waived.

For a Commission: the form is only an inquiry. If work is accepted, refund and cancellation terms will be part of the written agreement made before work begins.

Feedback is welcome, but it does not automatically create a refund or free generation. See the Terms.

Afterwards

Can I print it? Do you mail physical cards?

Print it as much as you like—once or a hundred times, at home or at a print shop. The cover is a high-resolution RGB digital image — 1500 × 2100 pixels, which prints at 5 × 7 inches. A personal note, if added, can be saved as a separate PNG at the same size. These are separate images, not a folded-card PDF or ready-to-print double-sided layout.

It is not a press-ready CMYK file and does not include bleed, crop marks, a printer profile, or a proof for a particular printing service. Color and trimming can vary, so print a test first when the result matters.

Fond & Fold does not print or mail physical cards. Everything here is digital; you arrange any printing yourself.

Can I use it for my business?

Not by default. What you buy covers personal use, for good: send it, print it, frame it, put it on your own social accounts, stick it on the fridge.

Selling it, advertising with it, putting it on merchandise, adding it to a template pack, or feeding it into a model as training data — those all need a word with us first. They're all possible; email us and we'll agree terms. The Terms spell out the line.

I think a card uses work or rights I control. What should I do?

Use Contact us, choose Copyright or other rights concern, and identify the original work or right, the exact Fond & Fold page, why you believe the use is not authorized, and whether you are the rights holder or authorized to act for them.

We may ask for more information and may temporarily restrict or remove the material while reviewing it. See the Terms.

What happens to my photo?

For an automatic card, a private working copy of the source photo is kept for up to 30 days to check and make the card and for limited quality review. A reduced version may be sent to OpenAI for a suitability check; if accepted, the photo and private instruction are sent to OpenAI to generate the card. OpenAI states that API data is not used for model training by default and handles it under its own data controls.

Unpaid results are ordinarily kept for up to 30 days. A final file tied to an unresolved payment may be kept until the payment provider confirms its status. Purchased final files are ordinarily kept for up to 3 months. A file may be kept longer while a payment, delivery, dispute, security, or legal issue is unresolved. Fond & Fold does not use source photos for facial recognition, advertising, or model training, and does not use finished cards in paid advertising. Commission files follow the private inquiry and working-email process. See Privacy.

Is my personal note private?

Your note appears on the card’s private delivery page, not in the delivery email or link preview. Anyone with the link can read and save it, so share it only with people you choose. The shop owner can access it for delivery support.

It is not sent to OpenAI, Dodo Payments or mailing-list services. See Privacy for how the note is handled and Retention for how long it is kept.

Still stuck?

Email us at hello@fondandfold.com.

Asking about a Commission instead? That page explains what to send and how an inquiry works.

Business, partnership and press notes live on About.