Submitting patient before and after photos to your Connect profile

When researching plastic surgery, seeing is believing. "Before and after photo" is one of the most searched for terms related to plastic surgery, and the Before & After Photos section is one of the most heavily trafficked areas of PlasticSurgery.org.

As with your own practice website, patient before and after photos are one of the most valuable things to add to your Connect profile. You'll be showcasing your work to your own visitors, but there's an added benefit: Your photos are eligible to appear on the public ASPS before and after gallery with a link back to your profile, giving you one more avenue to be found by prospective patients.

To upload patient before and after photos, you'll need three things:

• An active Connect profile.
• Information on how to take high-quality before and after photos is available in Photographic Guidelines in Plastic Surgery from ASPS.
• Documentation of the patient's consent to use the photos.

With those in hand, here's how to get started:

Uploading photos to your Connect profile

Start by logging into your member account on PlasticSurgery.org. From your dashboard, click on My Content, then select Patient Photo Manager.

From here, you will see all the photos you have already uploaded, or if this is your first set, a button marked +Add New Case. Click this button to add your first set.

Procedure

Start by selecting the procedure from the dropdown menu. Once selected, this cannot be changed, so verify you have selected the correct procedure, then click Next.

Verify patient consent

Next, verify that you have a record of the patient's consent to use the photographs on file. Make sure your consent forms allow the use of the photos by both yourself and on the ASPS website. You do not need to submit your documentation to the ASPS, just verify that you have proper consent from the patient on file. Check Accept and then click Next.

Add your first photo set

Click the Select a photo to upload button to browse your computer for a Before photo. Choose a single photo, not a composite of before and after or multiple angles. Acceptable file types are JPG, JPEG and PNG and can be up to 15MB in size. The photo gallery system automatically resizes photos for optimum viewing and download.

On the next screen, you will have an opportunity to crop and rotate the photo. Then click Next to repeat the process with the corresponding After photo.

Add your case notes

After adding your first set of before and after photos, you have the opportunity to add case notes. The Case Description is where you can tell the story of the case, highlighting not just the what and how but the why behind the procedure.

The rest of the available fields are dependent on the procedure type, and you can fill out as many or few as you like.

Once you're finished, click +Create New Case to create the case in our system.

Add additional photos

Once the case is created, you'll see the Edit Case screen. At this point, you can add additional photo sets to the case to show multiple angles of the same procedure. Click +Add Photo Set and follow the same steps you used to upload the first set. Repeat until you have uploaded all the sets related to the case. You can also edit the case notes and previously uploaded photos from this same screen. When you are finished, click Close Case.

Review

Once you have uploaded your case, it will appear in a gallery of all your cases. In this view, only the first set of photos will be visible for each case. To view, edit or add more photos to a case, click the Edit button. You can also delete a case from this screen.

Once submitted, photos will be reviewed by ASPS staff. To be approved to appear on your Connect profile:

• Photos must be working (i.e. images are not broken or corrupted)
• Photos must match the procedure listed
• Photos and case notes must not contain any protected health information, such as the patient's name or address.

Once approved, the light blue In Review button will change to a dark blue Approved button and the images will appear on your Connect profile.

Adding photos to the public ASPS Before and After photo gallery One of the great benefits of adding your before and after photos to your Connect profile is the opportunity to appear in the public ASPS before and after photo gallery. When a visitor to PlasticSurgery.org comes across your photo in the public gallery or on one of the procedure pages, it will be listed with your name and location. When clicked, the photos also display a Schedule a Consultation form and a link back to your Connect profile.

You don't need to do anything extra to have your photos appear on the public gallery – they are considered automatically. However, there are a few extra criteria your photos must meet for them to be approved to the public gallery:

• Photos cannot contain visible watermarks or practice logos. This a popular practice to deter theft but is not allowed on the public ASPS gallery. If theft is a concern, the photography blog PetaPixel has suggestions on how to find stolen images and prevent theft.
• Photos cannot be a collage, e.g. multiple angles in one image.
• Photos must be a reasonable before and after comparison, and the surgical area cannot be obscured or distorted by clothing, hair, lighting or positioning. Make sure you are following best practices for before and after photos.

If your photos meet the all the above criteria, they will be approved to both your Connect profile and to the ASPS public before and after photo gallery, and you can start showcasing your work to the world.