Last updated: 11 November 2026
These terms govern your use of SmartCull (https://smartcull.uk), an online software service (SaaS) operated by Pál Márk Foroszán, a sole trader registered in Hungary (Hungarian registered name: Foroszán Pál Márk e.v.; registration number: 62853549), MAGYARORSZÁG, 5700 GYULA, SZÖNYI KÖZ 1., EU VAT number HU91145804, email hello@smartcull.uk ("we", "us"). SmartCull is the UK service of Fotóválogató (https://fotovalogato.hu). By creating an account or making a purchase you accept these terms, our Privacy notice and our Data Processing Agreement.
SmartCull is a web-based tool for photographers: it groups uploaded photo sessions by face (face grouping), scores image quality (sharpness, blinks, eye contact, duplicates), proposes a selection per person that you can adjust and download, and optionally provides password-protected parent galleries with online ordering. The selection is an automated suggestion — the final selection is your decision and responsibility. We do not guarantee that every person or photo is identified correctly.
Photo shop. You may also upload a set of photos of any subject (events, nature, macro, portraits and so on) without sorting or face grouping, and create an online ordering page (a “photo shop”) accessible through a unique link, with optional password protection. Customers with access can view reduced-size previews of the photos, with or without a watermark depending on your settings, and place orders for the products you offer at your chosen prices. Creating and opening a photo shop is free of charge, and the shop does not expire automatically (see section 6). We set an allowance for the number of free photo shops and the total number of photos that can be uploaded to them free of charge per account. Photos uploaded free of charge count towards the allowance even if you subsequently delete them. Paid uploads and photos transferred to a shop from a culled session do not count towards that free upload allowance. All photos uploaded directly to a shop created beyond the free shop allowance are chargeable. Other uploads beyond the free photo allowance cost the same per photo as culling; different terms may apply to subscription accounts. Before you start, we’ll show you the number of chargeable photos and the total amount payable. We only deduct the charge from your credit after you expressly confirm. The current free allowances and per-photo charges are available in our pricing information. It is an order-taking tool: the sale is concluded between you and the buyer. The photographer is responsible for fulfilling the order and arranging payment with the customer. Where online payment is enabled, customers can pay through Stripe Checkout using the photographer’s own Stripe account. SmartCull provides the ordering interface and initiates the payment, but does not receive or hold the customer’s payment. See also “Online payments from parents and customers”.
Online payments from parents and customers. SmartCull enables photographers to accept online payments in parent galleries and, where available, photo shops by connecting their own Stripe accounts. The photographer is the seller and contracts directly with the customer; SmartCull provides the ordering interface and the technical means to initiate payments. Stripe processes each payment through the photographer’s own Stripe account, subject to Stripe’s applicable terms. Stripe may charge the photographer payment processing fees. SmartCull does not deduct a separate platform fee from these customer payments; any charges under the photographer’s SmartCull plan are billed separately. The photographer remains responsible for issuing invoices or receipts as required, handling refunds, and meeting their obligations to customers. Available payment methods and payout timings may depend on Stripe and the settings of the connected account. When you set up online payments through Stripe, we may check whether the bank account provided for payouts is already used with another SmartCull account. If we find a match, we won’t approve the new Stripe connection until it has been reviewed. This does not affect existing Stripe connections or other account features. If the bank account is legitimately shared, you can request a manual review and an exception.
Lightroom Classic plug-in. The Provider offers an optional Lightroom Classic plug-in, available to download free of charge, for use with the SmartCull online service. The plug-in uploads JPEG copies generated from photos selected by the User, starts processing and imports the results into Lightroom Classic. A SmartCull account and separate authorisation of the Lightroom connection are required. The plug-in itself is free, but the service’s usual processing and download charges still apply. The User is granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the plug-in as necessary for its intended purpose with the service. Access can be revoked from the User’s Profile. The User remains responsible for the lawful handling of uploaded photographs.
We aim for continuous availability; in case of maintenance or faults we restore the service as soon as possible. We are not liable for downtime.
You need a name, email address and password; we verify your email. Your account is personal — do not share your login. The service is for adults (18+) using it in the course of their photography business. We may suspend an account in case of misuse, unlawful content or breach of these terms, and we will tell you (where we suspect a criminal offence, without prior notice — see section 5a).
When you sign up you choose one of two plans: Pay per photo (this section) or Pay as you sell (section 3a).
On Pay per photo, processing costs one unit of credit per uploaded photo; credit is bought in packs listed on the pricing page. Credit is deducted when you confirm the start of processing. Re-sorting, adjusting and downloading an already processed session is free. Every new account gets one free trial session: up to 100 photos it is completely free, including the zip download and the parent gallery. For a larger trial session the first 100 photos are free; the zip download and the parent gallery become available once the remaining photos are unlocked with credit; until then the photos beyond the first 100 are shown only as masked previews (watermarked or blurred — the same image protection the parent gallery uses — without file names).
If processing fails because of us, the credit used is restored automatically. Credit cannot be exchanged for cash. Unused credit remains usable while your account is open; it ends when your account is closed. Refunds are described in our refund policy. We announce price changes at least 15 days in advance; changes do not affect processing already started.
On Pay as you sell, processing (sorting by child and culling) and the parent gallery are free; photo shop charges are set out in the “Photo shop” section. You pay SmartCull a service fee equal to 8% of the total value of orders recorded through the parent gallery, whether the buyer pays online, in cash or by bank transfer. No commission is charged on orders recorded through the public photo shop, regardless of the plan selected. Buyers pay you directly; SmartCull is not a party to the sale. The fee is based on the order total when the order is recorded; at your request we credit the fee for a mistaken or cancelled order where justified. If you signed up through an eligible campaign, the fee on your first order is reduced by 50%.
ZIP downloads. You may download a complete session or individual children’s albums as ZIP files. Each photo counts towards the per-photo charge (£0.01) only on its first download; downloading the same photo again does not create another charge. The first 100 photos downloaded from your first session are free; this allowance is used as downloads are made. Session order fees count towards the amount due: once they reach the charge for the downloaded photos, the download does not increase your monthly statement; otherwise the difference is added to it. For each session you pay whichever is higher — the culling price or the fees on its orders (less any campaign discount) — regardless of whether the download or the orders came first; if the total falls below an amount already billed, the difference is deducted from your next monthly charge. Details and examples: ZIP downloads and commission. Before a chargeable ZIP download the amount is shown, and the download only starts once you accept it.
Monthly statement and payment. Fees are totalled per calendar month and per session. We send the statement on the 2nd of the following month, and it is due by the 15th. Amounts below £5 are not billed and are carried forward to the next month. You pay online on your Profile page through Stripe, which acts as merchant of record and issues your receipt.
Late payment. We send reminders on the 10th and the 20th. If the statement is still unpaid on the 25th, new uploads and paid ZIP downloads are paused until it is paid; logging in, paying, existing parent galleries, receiving orders and the free download of your first 100 photos keep working, and the restriction is lifted as soon as payment is received.
Switching plans and changes. At your request we can switch your account from Pay per photo to Pay as you sell; any remaining credit is offset against later fees. Switching back is not available. Sessions uploaded before a switch keep the terms of the plan they were uploaded under. We announce changes to the fee rate at least 15 days in advance; orders already recorded keep the rate that applied when they were recorded.
Payments are processed by Stripe. For your purchase, Stripe — through its Link service — acts as the Merchant of Record: it is the seller of record for the transaction, calculates and collects VAT or sales tax where applicable, sends your receipt and invoice, and handles payment-related support and refunds. Your card details never reach our server. Stripe's terms for purchases sold through Link apply to the purchase itself. Credit is added to your account automatically after successful payment, usually within minutes and at the latest within 24 hours.
For the photos you upload, you are the data controller and we act as your data processor under our Data Processing Agreement (UK GDPR / EU GDPR Art. 28), which forms part of these terms. You are responsible for having a lawful basis — including, where required, the consent of parents or legal guardians — for taking the photos and for processing them by face grouping (biometric data). How you obtain and document consent is your choice; a printable parental consent template is available, and a child whose parent has not consented can be left out of the parent gallery with the switch next to their name in the gallery editor. You are solely responsible for how you share parent-gallery logins and links. You may upload only photos you are entitled to use, and you must not use the service to identify, track or monitor people or for any purpose other than selecting photos. Sales to parents through the parent gallery are contracts between you and the parents; we are not a party to them.
Recommended use — your choice and responsibility. We recommend three options for separating the children (details): (a) grouping by face recognition, only with the parents’ or guardians’ prior, explicit, written consent — consent is required from the parent (legal guardian) of every child appearing in the photos of the uploaded shoot (album) (and from any recognisable adult for themselves), because the program processes every face in the shoot; if any consent is missing, the shoot must be processed with separator cards or by clothing; (b) grouping with separator cards, where the program performs no face recognition and creates no facial feature vectors (biometric data); or (c) grouping by clothing: this mode does not use facial recognition or create facial recognition templates. It groups photographs using characteristics of clothing and hair appearance, together with the order in which the photos were taken. Face locations and certain expressions are also assessed for photo-quality checks. Grouping can be less reliable where children have similar clothing or appearance, so you must review the resulting albums, particularly before opening the parent gallery. The usual data protection obligations relating to the photographs still apply. After grouping the photos, the software may also analyse a cropped image of a person's head to suggest whether an album belongs to a child or an adult. This automatic label helps organise the parent gallery and can be changed by the User at any time. This feature does not estimate a person's exact age or, in itself, identify who they are. Which mode you choose and how you actually use the service — in particular whether you use face grouping only with the necessary consent — is solely your decision and responsibility; we do not check your choice and are not liable for claims arising from it.
Public shop. The photo shop is accessible through a unique link that we generate. By default, anyone with the link can open the shop without a password; however, you may also enable password protection. When enabled, the link and QR code lead to a password page, and visitors must enter the password before viewing the photos. You decide whom to share the link and, where applicable, the password with, and you remain responsible for ensuring that the photographs are shared lawfully. You may only make photos available through your photo shop if you have the necessary rights and permissions to display them under your chosen access settings, whether or not the previews are watermarked — where people are recognisable, with the consent of the persons depicted (for a child, their parent or guardian). For school and nursery sessions we recommend the password-protected parent gallery. Sales in the shop are contracts between you and the buyer; we are not a party to them. We process buyers’ data (name, email, phone, note) on your behalf, solely to forward the order to you.
You must not upload or display through the service: pornographic, sexual or nude content — and no such image of a minor whatsoever; violent, hateful, threatening or otherwise unlawful content; or content that infringes anyone’s copyright, image rights or other personal rights. You are solely responsible for the content you upload. If a third party or an authority brings a claim against us because of it, you will indemnify us and reimburse our costs.
We do not check uploaded photos in advance. When we become aware of unlawful content, we act without delay: we remove it or disable access to it, may suspend the account, and tell you why. Where we suspect a criminal offence — in particular sexual content depicting minors — we disable access to the content, preserve it for the authorities, report it to them and suspend the account without prior notice.
Reporting. Anyone can report unlawful content to hello@smartcull.uk (also via the “Report unlawful content” link at the bottom of every public shop), stating where the content is (for example the shop link) and briefly why it is unlawful. We review every report promptly and tell the reporter what we decided.
Uploaded photos, face data and selections are deleted automatically and permanently 30 days after upload — or, if you set a parent ordering deadline, 30 days after that deadline. Parent orders are kept as your business records until you delete the session. You can delete sessions, or your whole account (from your profile), at any time.
Public shop. The 30-day deletion does not apply to the photos of a public shop: a shop has no expiry date. If, however, a shop is not used for a whole year — no one opens it, no order is placed and you make no change — we warn you by email, and if there is still no activity within 30 days of the warning, we delete the shop’s photos; the orders, the settings and the link itself are kept, and you can upload the photos again. You can of course delete the shop and the session yourself at any time.
By accepting these terms you authorise us, to the extent necessary, to look at the photos you upload and at the results of their processing in order to check that the service works correctly, to fix errors and to improve the quality of the results (grouping and selection). This access takes place only on our server: we make no copies, do not pass the photos to third parties, do not use them for any other purpose or to train any AI model. Anyone authorised to access the photos is bound by confidentiality. It does not change the deletion periods in section 6. Under section 2 of our Data Processing Agreement, this is part of your documented instructions.
The service only makes suggestions as to which photos came out best and how they may be grouped. Selecting, downloading, handing over, publishing and selling photos, and the content of parent galleries and photo shops, are your decisions, and you are responsible for the lawfulness of those decisions, including having the necessary permissions and consents. You must review the automatic suggestions before relying on them; we do not promise flawless recognition, grouping or ranking.
We provide the service with reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for losses arising solely from your independent editorial, sales or publication decisions, except to the extent that our own breach of contract or negligence contributed to the loss. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for unforeseeable indirect business losses or loss of profit. There is no monetary cap on our liability. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded (Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977). We are not liable for content you upload, for missing consents or for claims arising from your relationship with parents, except to the extent of our own legally established fault.
You keep all rights in your photos; we use them only to provide the service. We acquire and exercise no rights whatsoever over the photos you upload: we only store them and display them as you direct (sorting, gallery, public shop); we do not use them for our own purposes, do not pass them on to third parties, do not use them for advertising or for training models, and we delete them permanently at your request or when these terms provide for deletion. The SmartCull and Fotóválogató software, interface and brand belong to us.
SmartCull is intended for photography businesses. If you are nevertheless a consumer, you keep all rights that the law of your country of residence gives you, including any statutory right to cancel (see our refund policy).
We may change these terms and will tell you by email or in your dashboard at least 15 days before the change takes effect. These terms are governed by Hungarian law, without depriving consumers of the protection of the mandatory rules of their country of residence. Complaints: hello@smartcull.uk — we reply within 30 days.
