We are a professional, commercial photography studio. Our work has appeared in national ad campaigns, magazines, billboards and newspapers for years. We have the experience, equipment and personnel to create images to the very highest standards.

A blemish to remove? Teeth to be straightened or whitened? Wrinkles? Stray Hair? Misplaced makeup? Remove or replace someone or something in the photo? FULL spectrum color correction?

These are the things we do every single day with our staff of talented artists. Realistic, top quality fixes put to studio quality prints ready to be displayed proudly anywhere you see fit.

This being said, let’s go through each of the above options for "fixing" your photos.

The Local Lab- If you are fortunate enough to have a quality, professional lab nearby, you know you can get a clean print from them. We’re NOT talking about the local big box photo counter or the quickie 30 minute drop in the mall. Those are good for very quick, very cheap, high volume runs of very mediocre quality. (I’m sure you’ve seen the difference between how your photos appear on a digital cameras screen or on your computer and what you get from those places. Cheap, yes…that’s about the only plus.) A professional lab are the ones responsible for high runs of higher quality prints, like what you may see as wedding or engagement announcement photos. More realistic reproductions of your photos, attractive pricing for larger runs, the ability to get quite a few sizes and some minimal digital corrections available as a separate service. But, they are in the printing business, not creation business when it comes to photos. An experienced photographic studio however, can do things far, far beyond the skills of a lab, even if it is simply to prepare an image FOR the lab.

The Photo Kiosk and my home computer- Simple color corrections, a locked in size recrop and a little red eye reduction are the hallmarks of the kiosk and many home computer software programs that come with digital cameras. Let’s say, however, that a photo is washed out and includes a blue sky, a red umbrella and a black lab at the park on a summer day. Machine fixes of color push a single color grouping. That means you can get the blue, blue sky and maybe the green grass, but you lose the true colors on the reds, blacks and browns. More importantly, you may lose the skin tones on your subject and replace them with alien blue being to get the sky color correct. Have an odd shadow across someone or something? Want to crop something out of the photo but still have it print at the size that your frames use? Want to try and do ANY of the things we outlined You may be tough out of luck with either of these methods.

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As we talked about above, there are many steps to getting a display quality picture long before it goes to print. We never let an untouched photo leave our studio, even with professional cameras and lighting. To have the quality that our customers expect, there is always some massaging to be done by every professional studio before it is considered the final product, worthy of representing our work. That being said, even a professionally "fixed" photo can be ruined by a mediocre printing job. A pro lab will use equipment and paper far superior to even the best at home equipment and even for proofs in our studio, we use a printer with seven inks. How do you think your three ink 150 dollar printer with mystery paper will compare? Even a pro lab may have trouble matching exactly the way we’ve brought colors up on our screens. That’s the reason that we include a print with every order we fix here. We want you to have the very highest quality for display that can be taken from YOUR original!

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What CAN’T be done? It’s mostly up to your imagination to decide what you’d like to see happen to your photo, whether it’s fixing imperfections, getting rid of something you don’t like in a shot or fixing an old, bent, torn, abused photo. The sky should be more blue? The ocean more turquoise? The grass greener or maybe I should just be better looking! It’s really up to you. The thing to keep in mind is realism in a shot. If you want to be standing on the top of Mt. Everest in a swimsuit, that can be done, but certainly everyone would recognize that as an unrealistic photo. It’s best to consider a photo that captures something near and dear to you, that speaks to you, that has some flaws that you’d like repaired. A family vacation photo that may have captured someone walking across the background staring at you, but otherwise has everyone smiling at the same time and actually looking happy to be together. That may be a great candidate. Wonder what you’d look like with a fixed smile, no wrinkles and a different eye color, without going under the knife? We do that everyday. Have an ex that you’d like removed(gasp) from an otherwise great photo? You certainly wouldn’t be the first to ask us to do that. Although a caveat with that request. Please hold on to your original in those cases, time can heal many wounds and erasing someone and having them see that later when you are no longer angry or hurt, can lead to more unnecessary bad feelings. Have some other vision that we’re not mentioning or showing here on our site? Let us know and we’ll tell you how it may turn out.

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You know, probably not. A lot of photos are fine for what they are, as they are. A good rule of thumb for photos that you would have us "fix" is, "What photos would I hang on my wall, display on my desk or show strangers and family if they just didn’t have ------- wrong with them?" Damaged, old, faded or worn irreplaceable photos are also a sure bet.

The photo of the top of someone’s head, your friend’s carved pumpkin out on a dark porch or your dog’s nose pressed against your lens, are probably not. We’re not looking for your whole picture file, just the ones that are most important to you.

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Sure. You could get it as a billboard or a building wrap if you want. Keep in mind the size of your original though and realize that as it gets blown up bigger and bigger, the grains or pixels in the image may become noticeable. The newer higher pixel digital cameras can have their raw images taken bigger than an older, say 3 megapixel camera. When we shoot commercial jobs that are going to go that big, we generally use a 15 thousand dollar, large format digital camera that will capture about ten times the information that even the latest, greatest consumer camera could. This helps the image stay together as it gets bigger and bigger. You can get a reasonable 11 x 14 picture out of most cameras and scans, although they will not be as clean as the 8 x 10 would. The bigger the file, the more it will stay together as it grows.

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There are a couple of ways to digitize your older images. First, why should you? Well, a digital file gives you the flexibility to preserve your pictures for a much longer time than a print or negative not stored under optimal conditions. Second, it certainly makes it easier to share with others in this information age. Now, you can take your photo or negative to be scanned at a pro lab. You may also be able to do this with home computer equipment, if you have a scanner capable of it. The thing to remember is to get the absolutely highest resolution scan possible. Especially true of smaller photos and negatives. Dust is your biggest enemy and no matter where it’s done, make SURE that a lint free cloth has been over the scanner bed thoroughly AND over the scanned object. Be obsessive about that! We can also do scans in our studio and will gladly accept your print or negative for a nominal fee. HOWEVER, extra steps need to be taken to ensure that it doesn’t get lost or mangled by a postal or shipping company before shipping something irreplaceable! (Click here for more on safety in shipping photos and negatives.) We prefer that if you need to send us an image rather than bring it in, that you scan locally and send us a copy on disk or through our website. It’s the very safest method of protecting what cannot be replaced.

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Yes, follow these shipping rules to make sure it comes to us in one piece along with this form indicating what you need done and payment information. We’ll complete your order and get it back to with the new, fixed file, your original file and the commercial quality print.

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