We all have questions – let me try to answer as many as I can
Yes, RAW (Canon CR2 or CR3) files and the associated copyright assignments are available for $1,000 per file.
To open/edit RAW files you will need a copy of Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge, Capture One or a similar application and the necessary skills to edit and work on these files.
I don’t typically deliver every image from a session to you. Image proofing is a collaborative way for us to work together on the final images. By culling the images which essentially means removing the duplicates, our aim is to try and not overwhelming you.
I take hundreds and sometimes thousands of shots in one session! Before I deliver a proof gallery, I always discard any unnecessary or missed shots. What’s left is a collection of the absolute best images, with plenty of options to choose from. This is usually 15-30 images per outfit/background combination.
This is NOT an exhaustive list, if you’re unsure, just ask, almost anything is possible. Some options may be chargable.
- Different colour grading
- Enhance or lessen iris eye colour
- Remove more stray hairs (outside hairline/head)
- Remove more Criss-cross hairs (within hair)
- Remove hairs across face or clothing
- Lighten or darken hair
- Remove pimples
- Smooth background or remove something from the background
- Smooth wrinkles in clothing – basic
- Close a gap between 2 buttons
- Clean or remove something from your clothing
- Put back a mole or birthmark – the retoucher is seeing your face for the first time in a static image so might not be able to tell what is a pimple or temporary mark vs permanent
- or, if you don’t like the edit at all, completely undo edits (no one has asked for this, but know that you can)
- for an additional fee we can:
- Convert a headshot (portrait orientation) to a landscape website style photo
- a 3/4 or full-body photo is easier to convert than a tight crop
- Smooth wrinkles in clothing – advanced or very wrinkled
- Combine face from one photo with the body from another
- Convert a headshot (portrait orientation) to a landscape website style photo
When you’re in the proofing gallery, top right is a cart icon where you can purchase additional sets of images, 1, 2, 4 or 9 at a time. You do not need to use your allocation to submit your favourites for editing back to me, please use the favourites submission system to do that.
We have 2 ways to do this:
1: Please use this option if you can easily narrow your selection down to number of edits you wish to have
- I create you a proofing gallery, with say 150 images in 7 folders
- You select your favourites from the proofing gallery
- You submit your favourites back to me
- If the number you submit matches the number you’ve paid for I’ll assume you want them edited
- If the number exceeds the number you’ve paid for I’ll contact you – as you may be using option 2 below
2: Please use this option if you have 10+ favourites and can’t narrow your selection
- I create you a proofing gallery, with say 150 images in 7 folders
- You select your favourites from the proofing gallery
- You submit your favourites back to me (you MUST email or text me so I know to create the second gallery)
- I create you a second proofing gallery just your favourites
- You select your images for editing
- You submit your favourites back to me for editing
You can also use option 2 and ask us for advice on the best ones.
Photo proofs are lightly edited or only colour corrected images uploaded to a gallery. They are not the final creative product and may require further editing. Photo proofs simply provide you a good sense of what the images look like before final retouching.
Proofs are typically uploaded and delivered to the client within a week of the session. Once you choose your favorite images from the proofs, I will finish colour grading and my retoucher will edit them. Retouching is where the true magic happens!
When purchasing an image for editing the following options are included in the price:
-
Removal of facial shine
-
Stray hairs
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Skin blemishes
- Braces removal
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Whitening of teeth and eyes
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Glass glare removal
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Extend solid background (includes gradients)
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Solid background replacement
The following cost extra:
- Head swap (between photos)
-
Open / close eyes ( swap eyes between photos)
- Change colour of item
- Complex background replacement (i.e. not a solid single colour)
- Add / remove people
- Remove buildings, cars, etc.
- Lens flare
- Hot spots
- Take off 10 years, 20 lbs, etc.
After you select 1 or more images for editing, these are the notes my retoucher uses:
- SETS OF IMAGES – (i.e. set = same outfit AND same background)
- Even skin and background tones across all images in the set
- SKIN (face and body)
- Add very slight saturation
- Light natural skin smoothing – retain pores, wrinkles, texture & contrast – NO plastic or doll skin
- Even out skin tones
- Reduce glare
- Remove all blemishes (leave birthmarks and permanent skin marks, ask if unsure)
- Remove / lessen bags under eyes
- EYES / TEETH / LIPS
- Enhance eyes (iris – colour, brightness, texture)
- Whiten eyes only slightly – NO glowing whites of the eyes
- Whiten teeth slightly – NO Hollywood pure white, natural, i.e. less yellow
- Enhance lip colour, slightly (match to the overall image)
- HAIR
- Remove stray hairs outside the head
- Maintain sharpness between hair and background – NO blurring to remove stray hairs
- Clean hairs within hairline, criss-cross hairs
- Remove stray hairs on face and skin
- Remove stray hairs outside the head
- PREGNANT WOMEN
- Remove blemishes to the body, arms and legs as per face above
- Remove tiny hairs on belly / tummy to create smooth skin
- Do NOT remove the vertical stomach line
- BACKGROUNDS
- WHITE : Make white backgrounds brighter
- SOLID or TEXTURED BACKGROUNDS: Make brighter and more vibrant
- make them even across all images with same background colour
At the end of your session – all of your images are backed up to 3 locations (the good, the silly and the closed eyes)
We will:
- Cull your images
- (cull means to remove)
- Removing ‘bad’ images – closed eyes, blurry
- Keeping – silly & fun ones – if that is what you want
- Crop your images
- (crop means to remove unwanted areas from the image)
- Colour Grade all of the selects
- (Grading means to improve the overall appearance of the image)
- Upload your images to a ‘proofing’ gallery
- (Proofing is a process that allows you to select your favourite images for editing)
- There are 3 types of proofing galleries, ALL galleries allow favourites to be selected and submitted
- Proof only – no download available
- Proof + Download – these images are for personal use only
- Download – you have purchased the full rights to all images
Once you send your favourite images back to us for editing, we will:
- Remove the crop & send the full resolution file to our retoucher
- Removing the crop allows for different crops after retouching
- In-house quality control – send back if needed
- Mistakes happen, and it’s usually something very minor like stray hairs that were missed
- Upload to our Sign-off system (called “Design Proofs”)
- You will be sent the UNCROPPED version for sign off, I can reupload the cropped version if requested
- Within this system, you can EITHER
- Sign-off on all images OR
- Request additional edits
- If you request an edit we will repeat steps 1-3
- Once you have signed off, we will upload the full resolution JPG @ 5,120px, 300dpi, 100% quality to another ‘proofing’ download gallery on their own, often in various different crops
- please ask if you’d like a different crop
- please ask if you’d like a full-resolution TIFF
- (only available for edited images and full gallery purchases)