Sending a stranger sixty photographs of your family is a reasonable thing to hesitate over. Here is the whole answer, including the part with a number in it.
The short version
Seven days after dispatch. Then permanently deleted.
Your photographs go into a private, access-controlled folder for your order, opened only by the designer laying out your piece. They are used for exactly one thing: making it. We never sell them, license them, or post them anywhere without asking you first.
| What happens | |
|---|---|
| Where they go | A private folder, specific to your order |
| Who can open it | The designer working on your piece |
| What they are used for | Making your piece. Nothing else. |
| Sold or licensed | Never |
| Posted publicly | Only if you say yes, asked separately |
| Kept for | 7 days after dispatch |
| After that | Originals and print files permanently deleted |
The same is set out in the privacy policy.
What the seven days are for
Two specific things, and both are for your benefit rather than ours.
Transit damage. If a parcel arrives crushed and you send a clear, unedited unboxing photo or video within 24 hours of delivery, we reprint it free. That needs the print files, and it needs them at the moment you discover the problem rather than a fortnight earlier.
A second copy. People ask more often than you would expect — a sibling wants one too, a parent wants their own. The best moment is the proof stage: extra copies of a piece we design cost less than the first, and they travel in the same parcel. After dispatch, within the window, it is still a reprint. After the window, you would need to send the photographs again.
⚠️ If you think you might want a second copy, say so within the week. After the files are gone they are gone, and nobody can undo that at either end.
In practice: a book dispatched on a Monday has its files deleted the following Monday. If it lands on a Thursday, that leaves about four days — and if the family only gathers round it at the weekend, the gap between “everyone wants one” and the files being gone can be a single day. That is why asking at the proof stage is the safer habit. A second copy for another household →
Who handles what
Your photographs are not the only thing you hand over when you order, and each piece goes to a different place.
| What you share | Where it goes | Who sees it |
|---|---|---|
| Your photographs and words | A private Google Drive folder for your order | The designer on your order |
| The proof conversation | Your WhatsApp thread with us, or email | You and the studio |
| Card or UPI details | Razorpay, which takes the payment | Razorpay — never us |
| Name, address, phone | The order record and the courier label | The studio and the courier |
The privacy policy names every company that processes customer data, and says how to ask for your details to be deleted.
Who owns them
You do. Sending photographs to be printed does not transfer any rights in them, and it never does anywhere reputable. If a service’s terms suggest otherwise, that is worth reading twice.
Photographs of other people
Most books are full of people who did not place the order: parents, friends, somebody’s children, sometimes somebody who has died. They get exactly the same handling as you do — the private folder, the seven days, no posting without asking.
What we cannot do is ask their permission for you. The terms ask that you have the right, or the consent of the people in them, to print what you send. For a family book that is rarely a question. It becomes one when the book is going beyond the family — a friend-group zine with other couples’ photographs, or a farewell book with colleagues’ children in it. A quick message to the people concerned costs nothing and avoids an awkward conversation later. Photographs of other people’s children →
What to ask any print service
Not just us. Four questions, and the answers tell you most of what you need:
How long do you keep my files? A specific number is a good sign. “As long as necessary” is not an answer.
Who inside your company can open them? “Everyone” and “we have not thought about it” are the same answer.
Do you use customer photographs in marketing? Some do, buried in the terms. Ask whether they ask first.
What happens if I want them deleted now? There should be a way to ask.
A seller who cannot answer these quickly is telling you something.
If your photographs are sensitive
For corporate material, unreleased work, or anything where a leak has a commercial consequence rather than a personal one, an NDA is a normal thing to ask for and we can sign one. Raise it before sending anything. Will you sign an NDA? →
What we cannot protect you from
Your own copy. The photographs on your phone, in your email, in the chat thread you sent them from — those stay wherever you keep them, and our deletion window has no effect on them.
If discretion matters, think about which channel you send them through as much as who you send them to. Three habits help:
Use the upload link or a shared folder for a large batch. The upload link on your order-confirmation page and email sends files straight to your order rather than through a chat that syncs to every device you own.
Close a shared link once we confirm receipt. A Drive or Dropbox link set to “anyone with the link” stays open until you change it. Switch it off when the photographs have arrived.
Mind the group chat. If relatives are sending photographs to the order thread, every one of them keeps a copy of every image. For a surprise, or for photographs someone would rather not circulate, have them send to one person who forwards the selection.
What to keep at your end, so that a copy years later is a short conversation rather than a fresh project, has its own page. Reordering a gift you gave before →
Frequently asked
How long do you keep my photos? Seven days after dispatch. After that your original high-resolution photographs and the print files are permanently deleted.
Who can see my photographs? The designer laying out your piece, through a private folder specific to your order. They are not browsable by anyone else.
Will you post my photos on social media? Not without asking you first, separately and explicitly.
Do I still own my photographs? Yes. Sending them to be printed transfers no rights in them.
What if I want a second copy later? Ask within seven days of dispatch, while the files still exist. After that you would need to send everything again.
Part of our questions people ask before ordering. See also: who actually designs the book and sending photos without losing quality.
Read the detail: Privacy policy · Photo magazines from ₹499