Writing · 16 October 2026

Why an eye card has to show both eyes

A missing eye on a catalogue card is usually a crop, not a bad photograph. The band has to hold both eyes, and the position is something an admin can move.

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An eye look is a small thing in a large photograph. Cut the frame wrong and the look disappears: the lid is a grey bar, one wing is outside the card, or the crop sits on the forehead and the eyes are simply not in the picture.

That is a framing problem, not a makeup problem. Regenerating the photograph does not fix a card that is then sliced through the middle of the face.

What the card is supposed to show

Both eyes, and enough of the brow and the cheek that the shape of the look is readable. A wing that leaves the frame on one side is half a look. A smokey lid that is covered by a letterbox bar is no look at all.

The stills are tall because they are portraits. The card is wide, because an eye look is a band across the face, not a full-length outfit. A tall portrait dropped into a short band without a crop shows the ceiling, the shoulders, and a strip of grey. The eyes sit in the middle of the file and never reach the card.

How the crop works

Position is a number from the top of the still. Zero holds the hairline. Fifty holds the middle, which is where the eyes are on these portraits. One hundred holds the chin. The photograph itself is not re-cut for every visitor. The card tells the browser which band to show.

Hair and makeup cards still hold the top, because those looks live in the hair and the cheek colour. Eyes hold the middle, because that is the only band where both eyes fit. Using the hair crop on an eye card is how the eyes vanish.

If a card is still wrong

Look at the still before you ask for a new generation. If both eyes are in the file and missing from the card, the crop is wrong. Move it until both eyes are in the band, and save that position. A new generation is for a photograph that is itself wrong — a missing eye in the file, a face that is not the person, a look that is not the look named on the card.