The agreement,
in readable English.

These terms cover using this site and ordering from it. They are written to be understood rather than to be impressive, and they say what we are responsible for as clearly as they say what you are. Using the site means accepting them.

What you are buying

Burnished Portraits makes a portrait from a photograph you supply, and then delivers it as a digital file, a fine art print, a gallery canvas, or a canvas set into a wood frame. Every physical item is made to order for one customer. Nothing is held in stock, and nothing is resold if an order is cancelled late.

That is what makes this a custom product in the sense that consumer law uses the term, and it is the reason the process is arranged the way it is: the preview and the editing come first and are free, so the decision is made while it can still be changed at no cost to anyone.

The portrait is a painted-style interpretation of your photograph. It is produced to resemble the subject closely, but it is not a photographic reproduction and small departures from the source image are inherent to the result rather than a defect in it. What you see in the approved preview is the standard the finished piece is measured against.

Approving the preview

Placing an order confirms that you have seen the portrait, that it is the version you want, and that it may be printed as shown. This is the single most important term on the page, because it is the point at which an adjustable file becomes a physical object that cannot be unmade.

Before that point you may regenerate and edit freely, at no charge, with no time limit and no account. After it, the piece enters production at a studio, usually within hours. If you notice a problem immediately, write to us at once — where the order has not yet entered production we can cancel and refund it in full.

If what arrives does not match the preview you approved, that is a defect and is covered by a free remake. The returns and remakes page sets out exactly what that covers and what to send us.

Rights in your photograph

The photograph you upload remains yours. We claim no ownership of it, and uploading it does not give us a licence to publish it, to show it to anyone else or to use it in marketing. We use it for one purpose: producing the portrait you asked for.

In return, you confirm that you have the right to use the photograph you upload. That normally means you took it, or you own it, or you have permission from whoever did. It also means that where a photograph shows another person, you have their agreement to have a portrait made from it. We have no way of verifying any of this, which is precisely why it sits with you.

If a photograph is supplied without those rights and a claim follows, that claim is yours to answer. We will remove the material and cooperate with any legitimate request, but we cannot take on responsibility for the provenance of an image we never saw the origin of.

Rights in the portrait

Once your order is paid, you may use the portrait for any personal purpose without further permission: print it, frame it, reprint it, share it with family, use it as a wallpaper, put it on a card. There is no additional licence to buy for ordinary personal use.

What the purchase does not grant is the right to resell the portrait as a product, to licence it to third parties, to list it on a stock or print-on-demand marketplace, or to use it as the basis of a competing service. Commercial use beyond your own business's ordinary self-promotion needs a separate agreement; write to us and ask rather than assume.

We retain ownership of the site, the style definitions, the software and everything else that makes the service work. None of it is licensed to you by the act of buying a portrait.

Acceptable use

What may not be uploaded

The list is short and it is not negotiable. Uploading any of the following breaks these terms, and we may refuse the order, remove the material and decline to serve the account or session it came from. Where the law requires it, we will report it.

Photographs you do not have the right to use — images taken from the internet, from social media accounts that are not yours, from a stock library, or a professional photographer's work you have not licensed.
Photographs of people who have not agreed to it, where the result is intended to embarrass, harass or mislead them.
Material that is sexual, violent, hateful, or that depicts the abuse of a person or an animal.
Anything that would infringe a trademark, a character, a logo or a brand, or that imitates a living creator's distinctive protected work.
Anything unlawful where you are, or anything intended to impersonate someone or to be passed off as evidence of something that did not happen.

Refusing an order on these grounds means refunding it. We do not keep money for work we have declined to do.

Prices, payment and orders

Prices are shown before payment, in your currency where we support it, and include free delivery. Where an order crosses a border, customs duties and import taxes are set by your own authorities and are payable by the recipient; we cannot calculate them in advance and we add nothing to them.

An order is a request until we accept it. We may decline one — for a suspected payment problem, an undeliverable address, a size we cannot produce for your region, or a breach of the acceptable use terms above — and where we do, you are refunded in full. Obvious pricing errors are a further exception: if a price is plainly wrong, we will tell you before producing anything and give you the choice of the corrected price or a full refund.

Availability of the service

The site is provided as it is. We work to keep it running and to keep the previews quick, but we do not promise uninterrupted availability, and free previews are subject to the daily allowance described on the how it works page. Free features may change; anything you have paid for will be honoured under the terms that applied when you paid.

Limits of our responsibility

If something we make or ship is defective, damaged or does not match the preview you approved, we remake and reship it free, or refund it if you prefer. That is the primary remedy and it covers the situation almost everyone is in.

Beyond that, our total liability in connection with an order is limited to the amount you paid for it. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses — a gift that did not arrive in time for an occasion, a carrier delay outside our control, or loss of profit or opportunity. We are also not responsible for a photograph you uploaded without the rights to it.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited, including for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence. Nothing here removes the rights consumer law gives you in your own country. Where that law grants you more than this page does, the law applies and you do not need to argue it with us.

Privacy

How your photographs and personal information are handled is set out on the privacy page, which forms part of these terms. The short version: uploads and unpurchased previews are deleted after 72 hours, your work is visible only to you, and nothing you upload is ever used to train a model.

Governing law and contact

The governing law and the courts with jurisdiction over any dispute are to be confirmed and will be stated here in full before this section is relied upon. Until then, any dispute will be handled in good faith by correspondence, and your statutory rights in your own country are unaffected.

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply. We may update these terms; the version published at the time of your order is the one that governs it. Questions, complaints and anything that reads as unclear should go to support@burnishedportraits.com, and we will answer within two working days.

Nothing to agree to yet

The preview is free, and the decision is entirely yours until you make it.

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The agreement,in readable English.