What happens to your photos after the session

The session is the part everyone thinks about. The two weeks after it are where the photographs are actually made. Here is what happens, in order, and what you can expect at the end of it.

Backup, before anything else

Every session is shot to two memory cards at once, and the files are copied to two separate drives before Stef goes home. Card failure is rare; losing a client's session to it would be unforgivable. This is also why sessions use two camera bodies.

Culling

A one-hour session produces several hundred frames. Most are near-duplicates, blinks, or the half-second before the real expression. Culling picks the strongest frame from each moment. Your package lists how many edited images you receive; the cull usually lands a little above that, and the extras are included rather than withheld.

Editing and retouching, and where the line is

Every delivered image is edited: exposure, colour, contrast, crop, and the consistent look that makes a gallery feel like one body of work. Retouching goes further on portraits and glamour: temporary blemishes, stray hairs, lint, a crease in a shirt. What is not done is reshaping bodies or faces. You will look like yourself on a very good day, not like someone else. If you have a specific request, a scar you would rather keep or one you would rather not, say so on the release form or afterwards.

Turnaround

Roughly two weeks for most sessions, longer in peak season, and you are told at booking if that is the case. Priority delivery within seven days is available as an add-on. Preview images are sometimes sent within a few days when there is a clear favourite.

The private gallery

Your photographs arrive as a link to a password-protected online gallery. You can view, favourite, download and share from it. Downloads include full-resolution files for printing and web-sized files for screens. Stefsetherealdream galleries are delivered the same way with a stronger default: no sharing features are enabled unless you ask, and the link is sent only to you.

Prints and albums

Screens are where most photographs live now, and a wall or a book is where they last. Fine-art prints, framed prints and albums are available on request and quoted from your gallery once you have chosen. The quote estimator lists indicative print and album add-ons.

Who owns what, and who may show it

You receive full-resolution files that are yours to keep and print. The studio retains copyright, as every photographer does, and your release sets out whether the studio may show your images in its portfolio. For client sessions that is the default; for Stefsetherealdream sessions it is not. Both can be changed on the release or afterwards, in writing. The model releases page explains the three kinds in plain language.

How long files are kept

Edited galleries stay online for at least twelve months, and the original files are archived for several years. Download your gallery when it arrives all the same, and keep a copy somewhere that is not only your phone. Re-delivery of an archived gallery is possible but not guaranteed forever.