Congratulations on the important investment you’ve made in yourself and your success!
Be sure to protect your investment by downloading and archiving your digital files now using these simple steps.
Your portrait gallery is temporary and for delivery purposes only. All of your images should be downloaded now as both high-resolution and social media sized digital files. The Studio does not archive digital images and will not have access to the files in your gallery after 30 days, so please follow our recommended instructions listed below for long term digital file preservation before they are lost forever.
You’ll need to SAVE YOUR IMAGES on your personal computer and again in a second location not on the same device (i.e. iCloud, Dropbox, Google photos, an external hard drive, USB drive, etc). It is highly recommended that you store them in at least two different locations and ideally three different locations. After 15+ years in business, I’ve seen the unthinkable happen far too many times and if your original files are lost, you’ll be glad you took a few extra moments to archive some backup files!
IMPORTANT: DO NOT take screenshot images from the gallery in order to save them since this GREATLY reduces the quality of your images and will result in poor file quality and fuzzy prints.
BEFORE YOU GET STARTED
All photos are the creative work of Maureen Porto Studios and are automatically protected under U.S. Copyright Law. Please take a few moments to read all of the information sent in your gallery email including important details surrounding Copyright, your Licensed usage rights, and Copyright attribution as required under federal law.
I understand this topic can feel confusing, so please feel free to reach out with any questions you may have about Copyright, license usage, or any 3rd party requests from publishers or other parties who wish to use or feature your images.
STEP BY STEP:
Step 1: Copy the 4-digit Download PIN found at the bottom of your email.
Step 2: Access your gallery of beautiful portraits by clicking the VIEW PHOTOS link at the bottom of your email.
Step 3: At the top of your gallery, click on the Download icon to save all of the digital portrait files as shown in your gallery.
Step 4: Enter your email address as well as your 4-digit Download PIN.
Step 5: Choose the size of the images you’d like to download first. You have the option to download your images as High Resolution (3600px or Original resolution), or Web Size (2048px, 1024px, or 640px). TAKE THE EXTRA TIME TO DOWNLOAD BOTH VERSIONS SO YOU HAVE OPTIONS FOR BOTH DIGITAL AND PRINT USE LATER. TRUST ME ON THIS.
THE TECHNICAL STUFF
Web Size / Social Media Files
Web size digital files are available in 3 resolutions: 640px, 1024px, and 2048px on the width. Web size files are much smaller and therefore are faster to download and upload. They are ideal for sharing on Social Media or for quick viewing. If you will be sharing photos on Facebook, the 2048px is the optimum resolution as it is the widest pixel width that Facebook will currently allow.
High Resolution / Print Files
High Resolution files are perfect for printing, and are available in 3600px or Original resolution.
The 3600px files are 3600px on the long edge, which can typically be used to print photos up to poster size canvases (though this will depend on the original file size).
The Original images are, just as the name suggests, the original files exactly as they were created for you. This option will provide you with the full resolution files, without any compression or resizing. These files take up more space on your drive and will take a little longer to download, but this is the option recommended for you.
MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Repeat the same process again downloading both the high-resolution and web size files, and save both sets of files in at least (2) different locations - i.e. on your computer AND Dropbox… your computer AND iCloud… your computer AND Google Photos… your computer AND an external hard drive, etc.
Sadly, the unthinkable happens far too often and the Studio will not have access to your files after 30 days.
YOU’RE ALMOST DONE!
Step 6: Once your photos are finished downloading, your portrait files will be saved in the Downloads folder on your computer. This particular folder will be named “Highlights” but please rename each of the folders to “high-resolution portrait files” AND “web size portrait files”, and then copy both of the file folders to at least 2 different locations (one set of each on your computer AND one set of each on an alternate computer/drive/cloud location).
Please feel free to reach out to the Studio at this time to confirm your files have been archived correctly, or with any other questions you may have.
