Bella Carta Designs [DICTIONARY OF TERMS]

Touch-Ups
Normal touch-up procedures include removing blemishes, smoothing skin, and whitening teeth; they do not incur extra charges, require no special requests, and are typically done long before you see your proofs. Some examples where this would be useful include a child’s runny nose or a stain on a child’s shirt.

Artistic Vision
Also known as Photo Enhancements or Artistic Alterations, our artistic vision and execution is what sets our work apart from traditional portrait studios. Because our work goes out into the world, you never pay extra for anything we feel benefits our work artistically such as lens effects, colorization, black and white effects, antiquing, masking, borders, or change of eye color to non-natural hue.

These types of special effects may significantly delay the delivery of your proofs or prints however, so please request them sparingly. There are likely existing examples of whatever technique you have in mind, so we will not artistically alter a photograph “just for you to see”. Because they take a substantial amount of time and effort, as a courtesy to Bella Carta, please only request designs you are fairly certain you’ll buy.

Custom Designs
You can choose an original design for your Christmas card or business card and have it customized to fit the photo you choose to put in it. You could come up with your own sentiment for an existing design or choose something all-new based on your personal vision. Other examples of custom designs include words or typefaces whose colors were taken from the photo you chose. There are no charges for custom Christmas card design.

Photo Correction and Reconstruction
Photo Correction is defined as any elective, corrective procedure not deemed by Bella Carta to add artistic value to the photo, or to address circumstances outside of Bella Carta’s control at the time the photo was taken.

Examples of Corrective Photo Reconstruction:

Let’s say you bought a new hat for your child right before her Bella Carta photo shoot, but they made her ears stick out in an unnatural way that wasn’t apparent until you received your proofs?… we can fix that.

What if there was only one good photo of a child who refused to smile? What if you wanted a baby taken from one photo and placed into the only other good one?... we can do that.

How about if Bella Carta came to your house for an on-location shoot in your living room, but when you received your proofs, you felt the presence of your ceiling fan really detracts from the photo?... we can fix that.

What if you chose a beautiful location for your portraits, but there were vehicles on the road in the background?... we can remove them.

The fees for corrective photo reconstruction are as follows:

$35 per resulting image for minor corrections (under one work-hour)
$50 per resulting image for major corrections (over one work-hour, but under two work-hours)
$20 per additional hour, per resulting image (typically only for very complex jobs)

Your Bella Carta designer will determine whether your request is feasible. Whether the work was major or minor can only be determined after its completion, based on the amount of time and complexity involved to create a reasonable level of photorealism in the resulting image.

Once your work is commissioned (typically by your signature or a specifically expressed verbal or written approval, including email), the fee will be assessed to your final invoice regardless of whether you choose to purchase prints of the resulting image.