Here are the steps that you need to take care while making a cardboard cutout at home:
- Arranging for a picture:
You need to take a good quality picture for the cutout because it’s all about the details of the picture. A picture taken from a common camera looks fine in small size but when you zoom it or enlarge it, it becomes blurry. This is why you need to go with a high quality camera. You can arrange for such a camera from local photo studio or you can ask some of your friends to lend you one. The more the pixel the better quality picture you can take. It doesn’t seem any different if you take a normal or small size picture with two cameras but when you zoom in, you can find the difference that a lower quality image is blurred. At this point, take more than one picture so that later you can select the best one from the list. - Editing the picture:
Now that you have chosen a good quality picture, it’s time to edit it – as the best carboard cutouts always have edits. A small sized picture looks fine but when you convert it in a large size, it won’t look like a real person or object so you need to edit it and then print it in a large size. Editing can be done on any editing program such as Coral Draw or Adobe Photoshop. If you know how to operate these programs, do it by yourself otherwise, it’s better if you ask one of your friends who has some experience in this field. Once you have edited the photo, now it’s time to enlarge it in a bigger size. This includes increasing the resolution of the original picture so that when you print it in a full human size, it doesn’t blur. Increasing the resolution has another advantage that you can see the picture without printing it on the paper and wasting a lot of time if it’s doesn’t look natural after printing. - Print the photo:
At this point, if you can arrange for a large size printer, you can print it at home otherwise; you can go to a printing shop and ask them to print the picture in a large size. The key purpose of doing this by yourself is to save some money and if that’s what you are going for, it’s better to print the whole image in multiple parts with a common size printer and paper. Although it needs more consideration when you place the image on the cardboard but with a little extra care, you can do it easily. Use good quality paper and printing ink so that there won’t be any spots or bad printing impressions on the picture. - Glue it on the foam core:
It’s up to you if you want to use a cardboard of a foam core either is fine. You can use any other material or board but it has to be hard so that it can stand without any support. Use good quality glue on the foam core and after a moment start placing the picture from one side. Some people make a mistake of placing the image from the inside and by the time they are done, there are still some air bubbles or wrinkles on the image which makes it look bad. This is why you need to start from the head or the upper side and gradually go to the bottom. - Cut off the extra foam from the sides:
After gluing the picture on the foam core and letting it soak for a while, now it’s time to trim the extra edges of the foam. Here you can use a knife, razor blade or a paper cutter but its better if you go with paper cutter as its less dangerous and you don’t need to worry about cutting yourself with the blade or the knife. Trim the foam in parts and gradually cut from the border of the image. Make sure that the cutter doesn’t cut any part of the image and it stays outside of the image boundary line. Once done, you can put a hardboard rectangle at the bottom of the cutout or make a frame to place it behind the cardboard figure so that you don’t need to provide any visible support.