About your photos

Firstly, thank you again for trusting me to be your photographer. I greatly appreciate it. The purpose of this page is to help you understand the photos you are receiving on USB or via the Internet.

Edited vs Retouched Photos

The photos you are receiving are edited photos. This means that they are cropped, horizons straightened, colour corrected, stylised, possibly converted to black and white and have a number of other global edits done to them. For many people these are more than fine for general usage. Especially if they are viewed on regular computers or phones.

Retouched photos are generally for printed photos in albums or large prints or images to be used for commercial purposes. Retouching can include things like skin smoothing, blemish removal, removal of distracting elements in the background, dodging and burning, teeth whitening, wrinkle reduction, eye brightening, flyaway hair removal, zit removal etc etc. The list is endless. Basically anything that is done that is specific to the subject of the photograph is generally considered as being retouched . If you want something done and it is in fact possible to do I can quote you. If I do not have the skills to do it I can get someone else to do it. An example of this might be replacing a person in a scene with another person. Contrary to popular opinion this is very difficult to do well at a professional level.

**Any prints or albums that I supply are retouched and optimised for the specific paper that is chosen and is included in the price** I am quite proud of my printing and probably take it too seriously.

Low Res Photos

These low resolution files are a copy of the photos but in a format that is optimised for Social Media and the Internet. These are good for sharing online or emailing. Also they are fine for printing 6x4's which is useful as you do not need to transfer substantial amounts of data if you are getting some cheap prints done

As you are reading this can I encourage you to print your photos at a basic level for the purpose of simply backing them up. Please read my article on this HERE.

High/Full Res Photos

These high resolution files are generally BIG. These are suitable for large printing. Even though I supply these to everyone the truth is unless you are viewing them on a large high resolution screen they are a bit overkill for the majority of people. However I deliver them so you have them and can be archived as a backup so you do not need to rely on me should they be required down the track.

If you are viewing closeups of your face, please avoid the temptation to scrutinise yourself by zooming in on the images. :-) This is like looking at yourself with a magnifying glass and it is not how we look at ourselves or other people.

Cropping

When I crop photos I only use a few "aspect ratios". This simply means what shape the image is. Occasionally I might do something different for artistic reason but it is pretty rare.

• 2x3 This is the most common size and what I use the vast majority of the time. This shape will happily print on 6x4 prints without any white space. As mentioned above, I encourage to at least get your photos printed at somewhere like Office Works for backup reasons.
• 4x5 This is the classic format for 8x10 inch photographs. I do not do much of this these days as A4 (photocopying paper size) has become somewhat of a standard.
• 1x1. Square. This will be quite obvious when you see it.
• 16x9 and 16x10. This is a panoramic style. If you decide to print these yourself it would be worth getting some advice from the good folks who are printing it for you.