Please try not to lose your information sheet, especially in the dog. It is now increasingly difficult to re-issue a child's passcode due to strict safeguarding rules. We recommend you photograph your passcode for safekeeping.

However, if you have lost your information sheet, then well before the deadline you should:

1. Contact your child's school as only they are capable of verifying registered parent email addresses. Schools are provided with all pupils passcodes and can usually help you.
2. Otherwise, you can contact us and we will do our best to help you.

All orders, for both digital and printed items, are processed and despatched to schools or homes after the deadline date has passed, not your order date. You may therefore have a wait if you have ordered early in the ordering window and we thank you for your patience.

While orders can take up to twenty working days post deadline date to despatch from school-photos, we will always turn them around as quickly as we possibly can.  Also, please note that delays after despatch are sometimes beyond our control, e.g. postage delays during busy periods and some schools may even delay despatching orders if it is raining.  If this order delivery timeframe is not acceptable to you, do not order.

Definitely! All packs can be mixed over different individual or siblings from the same family and household. We believe you should have one affordable pack for all your needs if that is what you want.

We do think it's unfair when school photography companies restrict packs to a single image or only allow mixing in top priced packs, thus making you climb their 'sales ladder' and forcing you to spend more than you otherwise would.  We believe in giving you your choice of images in the pack you can afford. So, mix up your school-photos packs!

We sympathise! You can browse images and products, but we may occasionally require an account with findmyphotos.co.uk to add to basket and purchase.

Even so, there are benefits to having an account, including a) you can tag your favourite images to make a personal gallery which b) makes ordering easier if you have multiple children (especially with mixed image packs), c) passcodes become optional after 'tagging' (even so don't lose them!), d) your basket is held on your account, not your device, meaning you can construct your order over time (e.g. if you visit your parents) which means e) you don't lose your basket if you clear your device cookies, f) accounts persist over time and g) we can better assist you with customer service as we can view your account and your current basket contents on the server.  We fully respect your data.

Please ensure you create an account before placing your order.  Creating an account after an order will not assign your original order to your account.

The printed information sheet explains how you can view and order images online (on any device) using a unique passcode that unlocks only your images - so please do not lose your passcode! Benefits of printed information sheets are numerous, including: it is much faster (as pupils receive them on photo day), minimises multiple contact points, it cuts out considerable administration for your school and we can photograph at schools that do not allow us access to their pupil name list.

If you are separated from your child's other parent and they have legitimate access, please share the information and passcode with them.

Your passcode may not work after entering it at the search bar possibly because:

1. Images are still awaiting upload. If your child has received their information sheet on or shortly after photo day, then please allow at least a few working days for us to process and upload the images before contacting us. The website will inform you if this is the case after entering a recognised passcode.
2. Your input may be incorrect and the search bar is saying 'passcode not found'.  Please check and input your passcode carefully - it is usually an eight digit alphanumeric passcode (alpha characters are lower case only). Be aware that certain characters can appear very similar - e.g. 0 (zero) looks similar to o (for oscar).

If you are sure it's not working when it should, please contact us and we will help you.

Please order within the ordering window allowed for your school if you wish to order printed items. We normally allow at least a two weekend window for ordering printed photographs and slightly longer for digital image purchased for download.

Otherwise galleries are sometimes re-opened at later dates in the academic year for physical print orders, e.g. during class photo ordering periods.

It is rare for our payment provider to block a payment being made. If the payment has been declined and your card is issued by a UK registered bank to your UK home address, then it is usually the issuing bank (i.e. your bank) that is declining the payment.  Our payment provider sometimes blocks a transaction if the attempted payment comes from a non-UK issued bank account or if it has been flagged for risk assessment, e.g. payment using a 'virtual card' or disposable numbers. If your payment has been declined, please contact us and we shall try and help you.

We can, though it depends on nature of the editing required and is for minor features only (such as spot removal) and only after receiving explicit instructions from parents so as not to confuse permanent marks, such as birth marks.  This may incur an extra editing fee.  Please contact us well in advance of the gallery deadline to discuss.

Glass lenses in spectacles reflect light, and whilst we always try our very best to minimise our lighting equipment showing, please be aware that sometimes this is simply impossible - spectacle prescriptions vary considerably, we are often restricted in the space we can place our lighting equipment and we are very time limited per pupil.  If you contact us well in advance of the gallery deadline date, then we may be able to edit the glass glare in photoshop for you (preview shown before purchase) though this will incur an extra editing fee.

Our prints are measured in inches at 12×8 (large), 9×6 (medium) and 6×4 (small) in size.  Imperial measurements are still prevalent in the photo printing industry, but in metric this equates to approximately 30×20cm (large), 23×15cm (medium) and 15×10cm (small).  Our large 12 inch size is larger than many of our competitors, where 8×6 is often the largest due to only printing from cheaper 6 inch paper rolls.

As an approximate print sizing guide, your information sheet (A4 paper size) is almost 12×8 inches (more accurately 11.7×8.3); fold in half length-ways to give approximately 9×6 (8.3×5.9) and fold length-ways again to give roughly 6×4 (5.9×4.15). Each being half / twice the area of the other.

No. All of our prints are 'compatible' with the most common sizes of mounts and frames available. We only sell prints in 12×8, 9×6 and 6×4 inch sizes as they exactly match the 3:2 camera sensor ratio.  Therefore, the image you see on your preview gallery is the image you get on your print. However each print will fit most common print frame inch sizes of 10×8 (5:4 ratio), 8×6 (4:3 ratio) or 6×4 (directly) with either a little overlap behind the edges of the frame or you can trim the edges of the print down yourself. Be aware that most frames, mounts and overlays will overlap printed images by about ¼ inch per side also.

Green-screen, sometimes called chromakey, is where a pupil is photographed against a green background which is then digitally removed from the image leaving a transparent background, allowing you a choice of different backgrounds. If you know your child is going to be photographed against a green-screen, then they shouldn't wear any green coloured clothing or hair accessories. Also note that a pure white background is not possible with green-screen.

Any personal information you provide on our ordering website findmyphotos.co.uk is held in accordance with the privacy policy and is in compliance with the spirit and principles of the GDPR regulations. Contact us to discuss. Please note we do not receive your card details from our payment provider and no financial data is stored locally or on your account.

Normally, though it is at the discretion of the school. Internal siblings (brothers and sisters at the same school) are usually photographed during the school photo day, but only when time permits and it's not guaranteed. External siblings (brothers and sisters not at the same school) are usually photographed before the school day (if pre-arranged) and we sometimes employ an online registration form that you will have to complete. The school will notify you if so. The exception is when a family photography day is offered with a slot booking system, which usually replaces any external siblings time period.

Yes. In fact, the majority of orders are now made on mobile devices. Our website and image galleries are 'responsive' and automatically adapt to your viewing device (desktop, tablet or phone) while still offering full accounts and secure ordering.

Unfortunately, orders cannot be amended or added to after they have been placed. Please ensure your basket contents are correct before clicking on the 'I confirm my basket contents are correct' checkbox and checking out.

All photographers are DBS certified.

Receiving your child's code: Your child will only receive one printed information sheet on photo day that includes their unique online code.  If you think you may not receive the information on the sheet from your ex-partner, then please contact the school who can provide you with your child's unique code that you can enter into our ordering website at https://findmyphotos.co.uk.

Receiving your printed orders: When we receive multiple orders for printed photographs for the same child and for delivery via school collection, they are always placed in separate parcels with different despatch tickets and returned to the school. However, the teacher or school administrator can only reasonably give all parcels to the same child to take home on the day that they are released by the school.  If this might cause a problem for you, please choose home delivery at the basket.

Choosing digital images: Alternatively, you can choose digital images which will be delivered via a special link direct to your e-mail address.

All online school portraits are passcode protected into individual galleries and parents can only see the child / children for whom they have a passcode. Even so, if you do not want your child's image to appear on our website whatsoever, please let us know and their images will be removed. Consequently, you will still need to purchase via online ordering using the image filenames and will incur restrictions including reduced choice of images, products and backgrounds.

Yes. We understand that some parents / carers prefer digital images so they can share them easily online and arrange their own printing. Unlike others, they are freely available for purchase from the start - i.e. they are not restricted to being an 'add-on' item to expensive packs. Please note that digital images are not available for class, year, whole school or team photographs.

Yes. Sometimes photographs may show the background edges, the front edge of the background floor or other paraphernalia. We are often space restricted at school settings so background have to be small and therefore we can sometimes 'catch' it in the photo. However, all purchased images will be correctly 'photo-shopped' to remove any background distractions. If your child was photographed completely off the background, then it may not be possible to amend in that instance.

School photography does involve a lot of processing and manual handling and, even with the best of intentions, things can occasionally go wrong. Please contact us detailing the issues you have with your order no later than one month after receiving it.  Please include as much detail as possible including photographs, quote your order number (provided on your order confirmation email) and we shall investigate.

Please note that one order means one parcel - if you have purchased photographs of multiple children on a single order, then all items will be returned in one parcel, not one per child. This is usually received by the eldest child, though not always.

We normally offer two methods of delivery:

1. School collection (no charge)
2. Home delivery direct to your door (charged)

School collection is the default option as it is easier, faster and cheaper than home delivery. Home delivery is more for separated parents or grandparents that may live away from their child. Please share passcodes with other relevant authorised people, including ex-partners.  Also note that we do reserve the right to choose the most appropriate home delivery method, including hand delivery.

If you have requested school collection, then:

• Primary: your order will normally be distributed to your child's class teacher for them to hand to you or your child on the day they are despatched.
• Secondary: the options for distribution are up to your school - some will distribute to the form tutor for handing out at registration while other schools will hold them at the office to be collected by the pupil (if so, please tell your child to take the order number with them to the office).  Some secondaries will require your child to write their initials on a table to prove that your orders has been collected.

Sometimes a school will require all photographs to only offer home delivery rather than school collection.  In these instances, only home delivery will be made available to you in the online ordering system. Of course, digital images do not incur any delivery costs.

Unless you have been provided with a paper based order form and payment envelope along with your information sheet on photo day, then we no longer accept cash / cheque as a means of payment. Your information sheet includes full details of how to view and order online through our website and we have made the ordering process as simple as we can. If you get stuck, contact us.

The benefits of online only ordering is that is it simply more efficient for all, keeps costs down, frees school administrators time for far more important tasks, is more environmentally friendly, reduces physical contact points, ensures accuracy (a major problem with hand written order forms), greatly speeds up turnaround times (no delays waiting for cheques to deposit / clear / bounce) and, as most schools are now 100% cashless, is the only realistic way to order school photography.

All of the photographs that we produce for proofing purposes show a copyright watermark to protect our work - ©school-photos.co.uk.  They are also protected via other means. All purchased prints and digital images that you receive do not include any watermark. Additionally, purchased digital images come with a personal usage licence and you are free to make unlimited personal prints.

Please note that any photograph that shows children other than your own will only ever be available as a printed, physical product only. Class, year and whole school photographs are only available in print format because they show multiple children and digital images are too easy to share online, creating multiple concerns. Please do not copy or share any product that is provided to you by school-photos, unless otherwise stated in our terms of sale.

Some of our galleries are available with the option to purchase black and white prints, and this will be shown in your gallery options. However, this is not always the case, e.g. greenscreen galleries do not offer a printed black and white option. If you still want monochrome images, we recommend you purchase digital images and convert to black and white with any photo editing package.

Parents might want to give their children haircuts beforehand.  Placing long hair in a ponytail helps, though if not the photographer might sometimes ask children with long hair to place it behind their ears to see their full face. Full clean uniform also helps greatly.  Please note that the photographer does not have any control over how pupils are presented and, as photographers do not touch children, cannot always amend things for them such as odd collars.

No. As long as your school continues to use our services, we do not delete images that are less than five years old. However, they are not held online and will need to be ordered by contacting us directly. It is therefore very important that you retain your unique passcodes for future reference if you may intend to purchase in the future - again it is best to photograph it for long term safekeeping.

All of our prints and products are made to the highest professional standards using quality archival materials. All standard prints are wet, silver halide processed that makes dye-based RA-4 chromogenic prints for maximum longevity. However, like all photographs, please keep them out of direct sunlight or they can fade and bleach within a few years. Although rapidly improving, we do not use inkjet 'dry-lab' prints at all.

Most schools prefer that photographs are taken in the autumn term, as schools want their database pupil images updated as soon as possible and parents can order in time for Christmas. However, not all schools will follow this and some prefer the less busy spring term. Subsequently, schools will usually stick to the same time frame every year, so if your school photographs were taken in the spring in previous years, this will likely remain the case this academic year. Class, team and whole school photos can vary, but are usually offered for sale in the summer term.