Studio note · 28 January 2026
What I hand a web team (and what I will not).
A commission is finished when the hotel can put pictures on a page without writing back about rights, colour, or which file is the hero. This is the folder I send. If your developer needs something else, put it on the estimate before the shoot, not in a message the week of launch.
The folder
One dated directory, named YYYY-MM-DD_client_shortname. Inside:
- 01-heroes/ — three to five horizontals, already cropped 16:9, sRGB JPEG, 2000px long side, plus the uncropped master TIFF beside each.
- 02-rooms/ — one subfolder per room, using the hotel’s own names (Room 4, not “yellow suite”).
- 03-details/ — hardware, linen, glassware, lamps. Square-friendly.
- 04-crops/ — 16:9, 4:5, 1:1 where the frame survives. See the first-screen note.
- 05-print/ — TIFFs, Adobe RGB, 300ppi, for the mailer or the press kit.
- README.txt — usage dates, colour profile, a line of alt text per hero, and the email to use if a booking partner asks about rights.
Filenames look like casa-bruma_room-4_0812_shutter.jpg. They do not look like final_FINAL_v3.jpg. If someone on your team renames them to match an old CMS, keep a copy of my names. The README points at them.
Colour
Web JPEGs are sRGB. Print TIFFs are Adobe RGB. There is no Instagram version with more saturation. If a social intern runs a preset, that is their file, not mine, and it should not go back onto the hotel site. Clara Mendes at Atlantic Still had the printers ask for the profile twice; we sent the one on the delivery note. That is the whole colour conversation.
Rights
The license is written on the estimate before anyone loads a camera. Default is two years, web, OTAs, print to A2, €850 — or bundled in the two-day property fee. After two years, relicensing is 60% of that line. Stock libraries are not permitted. A booking partner may use the heroes if they are named in the README. A sister hotel in another city may not.
I keep copyright. You license use. If your legal team needs a buyout, this studio is the wrong fit; say so early. I will not argue it after the invoice. The sentence is on every estimate from 2019 onward.
What I will not send
- A dump of every frame. The contact sheet is the selects plus a dated reject list. Raws archive for five years at €120/year if you asked on the estimate.
- Layered files of every room. Heroes can be layered if a retouch was billed. Rooms are flattened TIFFs.
- A mood board after the fact. The scout notes are in the README. If the house changed between scout and shoot, we shot what was there.
- A phone number for quick crops this weekend. Email the studio. If it is a true launch emergency, the extra hour is €180.
Alt text
Each hero in the README has one sentence: what is in the picture, not how it feels. “Courtyard at dusk, pool in shade, two chairs” is usable. I will not write serene copy. Helena Vogt at Rooms Quarterly said the captions were why she skipped a call. That is the job of the text file.
Web teams I have already worked with
Casa Bruma’s site was rebuilt after the shoot; the developer used 01-heroes without asking which frame. That is the point of the numbering. Lumen Stay’s WordPress person cropped a 4:5 from a 16:9 and lost the window. We replaced it from 04-crops the same afternoon. The note exists so that does not happen twice.
If you are the developer: open README.txt first. If a filename and a caption disagree, the caption wins and you should email me. If you need a 21:9, say so before I leave the property. I would rather make the file in the corridor than patch it in Alcântara at midnight.
Delivery is WeTransfer or a hard drive if the TIFFs are heavy; I do not leave originals sitting in a shared drive with no expiry. The link dies in fourteen days. If you missed it, write. I will not extend a folder that has already been downloaded by four people whose names I do not have.
Filed 28 January 2026, Alcântara. Rates behind this folder: commissions.