Terms

Paintings From Photo sells oil paintings that are painted by hand, one at a time, from photographs our customers send. The painting is done by trained copyists in our partner studio in Xiamen, China. We are a small operation, and the person who reads your email is the person who briefs the painter.

Email is the way to reach us, and it reaches a person: hello@paintingsfromphoto.com. Use the same address for an order in progress, a complaint, or a question about these terms. How we handle what you send us is set out on the privacy page.

An order is a conversation before it is a contract. There are three steps and you can stop at any of them.

1. You send the form. Your photograph, the size, the subject, and anything you want us to know. Nothing is charged at this point, and no payment details are asked for. Sending the form is a request for a painting, not yet an agreement that we will make one.
2. We reply within one working day. We look at the photograph properly and tell you whether it will paint well, what size it wants to be, and what we would do with it. If the photograph is too small, too blurred or too dark to work from, we say so then — before you have spent anything.
3. You agree the plan and pay by link. Once you are happy, we send a secure payment link and ask for the delivery address. Payment is the point at which the contract is formed and the point at which the work starts.

We can decline an order. If we do, it is usually because the photograph cannot carry a painting, and we say so plainly rather than taking the money and hoping.

Commissions from your own photograph run from £220 to £549 depending on canvas size, plus £59 to £105 for each subject after the first, according to the canvas. A subject is a person or an animal in the finished painting, not a photograph: six photographs of one dog is one subject, and one photograph of four people is four. Hand-painted reproductions from the catalogue run from £129 to £459 by size. The full list is on the pricing page.

The price includes the painting itself, the materials, any reworking after the approval photograph, and delivery, wherever in the world you are. It does not include a frame (every painting arrives unframed), it does not include the charge for each subject after the first, and it does not include any import duty or tax charged by the country the painting is delivered to.

WELCOME20 takes 20% off a first commission, applied to the whole order total including extra subjects, with no cap on the amount it takes off. It applies to commissions rather than to catalogue reproductions, and one welcome code applies per customer. Whether or not it is currently advertised on the site, it is honoured when you enter it on the order form.

The price we quote you in writing is the price we charge. We add nothing to it afterwards, and if the list price changes between our quote and your payment, the quote stands.

You keep every right in your photograph. Sending it to us gives us permission to do one thing with it: paint your painting and talk to you about it. We keep the file afterwards so the painting can be reworked or painted again — ask us and we will delete it. We do not publish your photograph or the finished painting anywhere without asking you first.

You need to hold the rights in the photograph, or have the photographer’s permission to have it painted. It matters more often than people expect: studio, school and wedding photographs usually belong to the photographer rather than to the person in them, so it is worth a short email to them before you send one to us. If we are asked to stop work because a photograph turns out not to be yours to use, we will, and the cost of any painting already done sits with you.

The finished painting is exclusively yours. Every painting in our catalogue is in the public domain — the artist died more than seventy years ago — and we do not copy the work of living artists.

A painting takes about three to four weeks, plus delivery. Larger canvases and crowded compositions sit at the longer end of that. We confirm the timeline with the plan, before you pay.

Those are working estimates rather than guaranteed dates, and we treat them as honest ones. If something slips — a difficult passage repainted, a delay in freight — we tell you, rather than letting the date go quietly past. If you need the painting for a particular day, say so in the form and we will tell you straight away whether it is realistic.

You see a photograph of the finished painting before it ships. If it isn't right, we keep painting.

Nothing is dispatched until you have seen a photograph of the finished painting and said yes. If something in it is wrong — a face, a colour, a background — tell us and we keep painting until it is right. Reworking is part of the price, not an extra, and there is no limit on it that we have ever needed to enforce.

To be clear about what we do not do: there is no digital preview or mock-up before painting starts, no sketch to sign off, and we do not send progress photographs while the painting is on the easel. The approval photograph is the point at which you see it, and it is the point at which anything can still be changed.

Every painting ships rolled in a tube, unframed. Nothing is sent stretched or on a stretcher. Rolled canvas survives a long journey far better than a stretched one, and any framer can stretch and frame it for you when it arrives — it is routine work, and a frame chosen near you will suit the room better than one shipped from the studio.

We ask for the delivery address when we send the payment link. Delivery is included in the price and we deliver worldwide. Any import duty or tax charged by the country the painting is delivered to is separate from delivery, and is yours to pay. The painting is at our risk until it is delivered to you: if it arrives damaged, photograph the damage and the tube and send it to us, and we will replace or refund it in full.

Before you pay there is nothing to cancel. No money is taken at the order form, so walking away at that stage costs nothing and needs no explanation.

After payment, if we have not yet started painting, tell us and we refund you in full. Once painting has begun, the canvas is made to your specification and cannot be sold to anyone else, so we do not offer change-of-mind refunds. What we do instead is keep working: if the approval photograph is not right, we keep painting until it is, and nothing ships until you are happy.

Because a commission is made to your specification, the fourteen-day right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations does not apply to it. That is separate from your rights if something is wrong. If a painting arrives damaged, or is materially different from the approval photograph you agreed, we replace it or refund you in full, and your statutory rights are not affected by anything on this page.

The detail, including how to tell us and what happens next, is on the refunds page.

We are responsible for the painting being what we agreed and for it arriving in one piece. If it is damaged in transit, or materially different from the approval photograph, we replace it or refund you.

We are not responsible for losses that were not a foreseeable consequence of the order — a booking made around a delivery date, for example — or for delays caused by something outside our control, such as a courier or a customs hold. Our liability for any order is limited to what you paid for it.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot legally be limited: death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, or your rights as a consumer under UK law.

These terms and any order made under them are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in the courts where you live.

We may update these terms. The version on this page when you place your order is the version that applies to that order, so it is worth reading the date at the top. This one was last updated in September 2026.