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You finish a piece and take the fresh photo. The client heals, loves it and never sends you the healed shot. So the portfolio fills with fresh work: shiny, a little swollen, and not what the tattoo will look like in a year. The healed photo is the one that shows your work, and the one most often missing.
Five kinds of photo, in order
Every project in Limespun has a photo timeline, filed by slot instead of left in a camera roll:
- Before: the client’s references, and the skin before you start.
- Stencil: the agreed design, one per project.
- Fresh, for each session: taken before you wrap.
- Healed, for each session: due 14 days after it.
- Final healed: the portfolio shot, once the whole piece has settled.
Fresh photos tell the story
Fresh photos go on the session they came from. Across a five-session sleeve, that’s the piece building up in order, which is useful to you and to the next client deciding whether to commit to something big.
The healed photo at two weeks
A photo around two weeks after a session shows how the ink is settling: patchy healing, ink loss in one spot, a line that needs a touch-up. In Limespun each session’s healed photo is due 14 days after the session, so the timeline shows which ones are still missing and you know whom to ask. On Asha M.’s koi sleeve in the Sample studio, session 2’s healed photo is in, and it’s the one Dev added to his portfolio. Session 3’s is past due, so the timeline flags it, and her next session is the moment to ask for it.
You choose what goes public
Photos on a project stay on the project. Nothing goes into your public portfolio unless you add it, and you choose which healed shots make it.
Because every photo is filed by project, session and slot, a healed forearm piece from a year ago is still on its project, not somewhere in your phone.
The best portfolio is your healed work. The timeline turns getting it into a habit instead of luck.
In Limespun
Portfolio & flash
Show the healed work you choose, and sell your flash.