How to Make an AI Handshake Video From One or Two Photos (VdoBloom AI Handshake)

To make an AI handshake video on VdoBloom, open the AI Handshake tab, upload one photo (the person shakes hands with a generated counterpart) or two photos (both real people meet in one frame), choose the Business Handshake or Deal Sealed template, pick a model, and generate — the cheapest two-photo render is 10 credits on Runway Gen-3 at 720p for 5 seconds, which is $0.50 and fits inside the 10 free credits a new account gets. Everyone appearing in the clip must be an adult whose consent you hold — a handshake video implies an agreement between two named parties, so both sides should know it exists before it is published.

This is the rare effect with a genuine business reason to exist: the deal-signing photo is hard to get because the two parties are almost never in the same city, and when they are, nobody has a camera crew standing by while the contract is signed.

One photo or two

The Handshake tab is one of a small group of VdoBloom effects with a photo-count toggle. The two modes are not the same feature:

• One photo. Your subject is animated shaking hands with a counterpart the model invents. Useful for a personal-brand post or a generic professional B-roll beat. The prompt behind Business Handshake in this mode is: the person in the photo giving a confident professional business handshake, suit and tie, cinematic quality.
• Two photos. Both people are real and both are yours. The prompt becomes: two people giving a confident professional business handshake, suits, office setting, cinematic quality. This is the mode that matters — it composites two portraits shot in different cities on different days into one scene with matched lighting and perspective.

The toggle also changes which models you can pick, and that catches people out. In two-photo mode the picker narrows to models that can honestly consume both images: the native effect families — Runway Gen-3, Gen-4 Turbo and Gen-4.5, Kling V2.5 Turbo, PixVerse v3.5 through v6, Vidu 2.0 through Q3, and LTX-2 Fast — plus the Seedance 2 family, the Gemini Omni family and Veo 3. Anything else would silently drop your second photo, so VdoBloom removes it from the list and resets an invalid selection back to Runway Gen-3 rather than letting the generation fail after you have paid.

Notably absent by design: Kling 3.0 Omni and WAN 3.0. Their second image means end frame, not second person, so a handshake request would morph person one into person two instead of putting them in a room together.

The two templates

Business Handshake is the default and the safer pick: suits, an office setting, even professional lighting. It is what you want for a partnership announcement, a LinkedIn post, or a press release image.

Deal Sealed uses dramatic lighting and confident expressions — the prompt is two people giving a powerful deal-sealing handshake, dramatic lighting, confident expressions, cinematic quality. It is more cinematic and more stylised. Good for a funding announcement or a conference recap reel; less good when the moment is supposed to read as documentary.

The prompt box stays editable. The additions worth making are environmental: glass-walled meeting room, city skyline behind, warm afternoon light, neutral grey backdrop. Adding instructions about the handshake itself is usually wasted, because that is what the template already encodes.

What photos to upload

Two-photo mode is the one that rewards care. Match the two sources as closely as you can before uploading:

• Similar framing. Two head-and-shoulders portraits composite far better than one tight headshot and one full-body shot. The model has to reconcile scale, and mismatched crops make that guess visible.
• Similar light. Two neutral, evenly lit portraits beat one golden-hour shot and one fluorescent office photo. The compositing step matches lighting, but it is starting from whatever you give it.
• Both facing roughly camera. Profiles and steep angles are harder to turn toward each other convincingly.
• Business attire, or say so in the prompt. The template asks for suits; if your sources are in polo shirts, either accept the substitution or remove the wardrobe language.

Credit costs

Every number below is the real per-tier cost from VdoBloom’s credit table. At Lite pricing — $15 for 300 credits — one credit is $0.05.

Model	Tier	Credits	Cost	Two-photo mode?
Runway Gen-3	720p / 5s	10	$0.50	Yes — the default, and the cheapest
Vidu Q2 Turbo	720p / 4s	15	$0.75	Yes
Runway Gen-3	1080p / 5s	20	$1.00	Yes
LTX-2 Fast	1080p / 6s	20	$1.00	Yes — includes generated audio
PixVerse v4.5	720p / 5s	22	$1.10	Yes
Runway Gen-3	1080p / 10s	30	$1.50	Yes
Gemini Omni	1080p / 4s	36	$1.80	Yes — native multi-image
Kling V2.5 Turbo	5s	40	$2.00	Yes
Veo 3 Fast	per render	40	$2.00	Yes — multi-reference path
Runway Gen-4.5	5s	48	$2.40	Yes
Seedance 2 Fast	720p / 5s	50	$2.50	Yes — both photos as @Image1 / @Image2
Seedance 2	720p / 5s	82	$4.10	Yes — the highest-fidelity option

New accounts get 10 free credits with no card, which is exactly one Runway Gen-3 render at 720p/5s. That free render is watermarked — fine as the approval copy you send internally, wrong for a partnership announcement, since a vendor mark on a corporate post undercuts it. Paid plans, from $15/month, release the same generation clean with commercial rights: see pricing and watermark-free downloads. One-time packs start at $2.49 for 75 credits and never expire, which suits announcement-driven use where you need three clips in March and none until September.

The steps

1. Open the AI Handshake tab.
2. Set the photo count. Two photos for a real partnership; one for a generic professional beat.
3. Upload under Upload Person 1 and Upload Person 2. Match framing and lighting as closely as you can.
4. Pick Business Handshake or Deal Sealed. The template prompt swaps automatically when you change the photo count, so choose the count first.
5. Add environment to the prompt if the setting matters — a specific office, a stage, a neutral backdrop.
6. Choose a model. Runway Gen-3 at 10 credits for the test pass; step up to Seedance 2 Fast or Gemini Omni only once the composition is right.
7. Set duration and aspect ratio. 16:9 for a website or press embed, 9:16 for LinkedIn video and Reels — decide before generating.
8. Generate, then review at full size. Hands are the failure point on this effect; check the clasp frame by frame before publishing.

A worked example

Two founders announcing a partnership, photographed a continent apart. Both supply a head-and-shoulders portrait against a plain wall. Mode: two photos. Template: Business Handshake. Prompt addition: modern glass meeting room, soft daylight from the left. Test render on Runway Gen-3 at 720p/5s costs 10 credits and comes out of the free balance. The clasp reads correctly, so the publishable version runs on Seedance 2 Fast at 720p/5s for 50 credits — $2.50. Total for a usable announcement asset: 60 credits, $3.00, and both founders approved the test copy before the clean file existed.

When to use something else

If you only need a static composite — two people in one professional image, no motion — image generation is cheaper per output and easier to iterate on. To see what VdoBloom produces before spending anything, start from the free generator page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make a handshake video from just one photo?

Yes. In one-photo mode the AI generates the counterpart and the template prompt switches to the single-person variant automatically. For a real partnership announcement, use two photos so both people are genuinely yours.

Why did my model selection reset when I switched to two photos?

Two-photo mode only lists models that can actually consume a second image. If your selected model is not on that list, VdoBloom resets it to Runway Gen-3 rather than letting the generation drop your second photo after billing you.

Do I need permission from the other person?

Yes. Every uploaded photo must be of an adult whose rights and consent you hold, and because a handshake clip implies an agreement between two named parties, both sides should know it exists before it is posted. Label it as AI-generated when you publish.

What does the cheapest usable version cost?

10 credits, or $0.50, on Runway Gen-3 at 720p for 5 seconds — which the 10 free signup credits cover exactly. A clean, downloadable version requires a paid plan starting at $15/month.

Which template should I use for a corporate announcement?

Business Handshake. Deal Sealed’s dramatic lighting and heightened expressions read as stylised, which is right for a conference recap and wrong for a press release.

Why do the hands look wrong sometimes?

Mismatched framing between your two uploads is the usual cause — the model has to reconcile two different scales. Re-upload with similar crops and even lighting, then try a higher-fidelity model such as Seedance 2 Fast.