Craft · June 30, 2026 · 5 min read
From photo to inlay: how a picture becomes cuttable
Why the best inlay designs throw away 90% of a photograph — and what to keep.
People often send a photo and ask for it on a wallet. The answer is almost always yes — but not literally.
A photo has thousands of tones. Wood has four or five.
Translating an image to inlay means collapsing every shade into a handful of flat regions. That's not a limitation to work around, it's the whole art form.
Find the silhouette
Squint at the photo until the detail disappears. Whatever shapes are still recognizable — that's your design. If nothing survives the squint, the photo won't work as inlay.
Cut the background
Cluttered backgrounds destroy inlay. A sky, a ridge line, water. Anything else usually goes.
Exaggerate on purpose
A ridge that's subtle in the photo should be taller on the wallet. A sun that's a small bright dot should be a real circle. Inlay rewards slight caricature.
Let the studio do the first pass
The fastest route is describing the photo to the design studio rather than tracing it. Say what's in it and where, then refine from what it draws.
Describe it. We draw it in wood.
Type any scene and watch it take shape as a real hardwood inlay design.
Open the design studio