# Author, Therapist and Academic Headshots from $29 Author, therapist and academic headshots from $29. 60 portraits for book jackets, faculty pages, therapy directories and conference bios, ready in about 1 hour. Full refund within 7 days. ## Author, therapist and academic headshots from your own photos One calm, consistent set for the faculty page, the practice listing and the back of your book. Photos you already have, 8 to 15 of them, train a model on you alone. Paid once, from $29, with nothing to renew. An author or academic headshot is a calm, evenly lit portrait on a quiet background, used on book jackets, faculty and practice pages, therapy directories, research profiles and conference programs. - One payment, from $29 - 7-day refund window ## Author and academic headshot ideas - **Tweed jacket, elbow patches** (outfit): The expected faculty look, cut clean so it reads as tradition rather than costume. - **Structured cardigan** (outfit): Approachable and tidy. The register therapy directories and office hours call for. - **Merino roll-neck** (outfit): No collar, no tie, nothing to date the photo. Works well under stage lighting. - **Linen jacket, open collar** (outfit): Relaxed authority for summer conferences, humanities faculty and author pages. - **Warm parchment studio** (backdrop): A paper-toned seamless that prints well on a book jacket and crops to a clean avatar. - **Book-lined study** (backdrop): Shelves soft and unreadable, so the eye stays on you rather than the spines. - **Conference stage wash** (backdrop): Dark stage and warm rim light, the frame that sits beside a keynote title. - **Campus quad, soft light** (backdrop): Open shade and stone. A natural fit for public facing and admissions material. ## Where authors, therapists and academics use these headshots - **Faculty and department pages:** Department sites crop portraits into small squares. A clean 4:5 headshot with the face high in the frame survives that crop and matches the colleagues photographed by the university. - **Conference and keynote bios:** Program committees ask for a headshot with the abstract, usually on a deadline. Keep the stage-wash and lecture-hall frames ready so you never send a cropped group photo again. - **Google Scholar, ORCID and ResearchGate:** Research profiles display a tiny avatar next to your citation count. A simple backdrop and a direct gaze stay legible at 80 pixels, where a busy outdoor photo turns to noise. - **Book jackets and author pages:** Publishers want an author photo with breathing room around the head and no distracting background. The warm parchment studio and the study frames are built for the inside flap and the Amazon author page. - **Therapy and coaching directories:** Psychology Today, practice pages and coaching directories show a small portrait beside your specialties. A soft, direct, warmly lit frame does more to start an enquiry than anything in the profile text. - **Grant and fellowship applications:** Fellowship portals and foundation announcements ask for a portrait alongside the biosketch. A composed, well-lit headshot signals the same care as the proposal. - **University press releases and media:** When a paper lands in the news, the communications office needs a print-quality image within the hour. Executive delivers 4K originals so they never have to upscale a LinkedIn thumbnail. ## Outfits - **Tweed jacket, elbow patches:** The expected faculty uniform, cut clean so it reads as tradition rather than costume. - **Knit blazer over shirt:** Softer than a suit, sharper than a cardigan. The right middle for a department that is business casual on paper. - **Merino roll-neck:** No collar, no tie, nothing to date the photo. Works especially well under stage lighting. - **Linen jacket, open collar:** Relaxed authority for summer conferences, humanities departments and author pages. - **Dark blazer, silk scarf:** A polished frame for keynotes, endowed lectures and the press release that accompanies a big grant. - **Structured cardigan:** Approachable and tidy. The look students recognize from office hours, photographed properly. ## Backdrops - **Lecture hall, blurred:** Tiered seating out of focus behind you. Says teaching without staging a fake class. - **Book-lined study:** The shelves are soft and unreadable, so the eye stays on you rather than on the spines. - **Campus quad, soft light:** Open shade and stone architecture. A natural fit for public-facing profiles and admissions material. - **Conference stage wash:** Dark stage, warm rim light. The frame program committees put next to a keynote title. - **Warm parchment studio:** A quiet, paper-toned seamless that prints well on a book jacket and crops cleanly for a profile avatar. - **Department corridor:** Institutional depth with a hint of glass and noticeboards. Understated and clearly on campus. ## Advice for authors, therapists and academics - **Aim for approachable authority:** A slight, closed-mouth smile with direct eye contact reads as confident and open. A stern expression photographs as unapproachable on a page students visit to decide whether to email you. - **Match the photo to the venue:** Use the parchment studio or the study for the faculty page and the book jacket, and save the stage wash for speaker bios. Same face, same session, different context. - **Keep it consistent for years:** Set the same portrait on your department page, Scholar, ORCID and conference profiles the same week. Reviewers, editors and hiring committees should meet one face, not five. - **Dress one notch above the seminar room:** A jacket or a structured knit signals the occasion without a tie. Avoid fine stripes and small checks, which shimmer at avatar sizes. - **Think in crops:** Profile fields crop to squares and circles. Choose frames where your head sits in the top third with clear space above it, and the crop will keep your eyes rather than your chin. ## How it works - Choose a profession pack. - Upload 8 to 15 recent photos of yourself. - Select a pricing plan and pay once, with no subscription. - Receive the completed gallery within the selected plan's turnaround. ## Pricing - **Starter:** $29 for 40 headshots, delivered in 2 hours. - **Professional:** $39 for 60 headshots, delivered in 1 hour. - **Executive:** $59 for 100 headshots, delivered in 30-45 minutes. Every plan includes a full refund within 7 days of delivery. ## FAQ ### What should a professor wear for a faculty photo? A jacket or a structured knit over a plain shirt, in a solid colour, with no tie required. Tweed, a knit blazer, a merino roll-neck or a linen jacket all read as academic without looking like a stock photo. Avoid fine patterns, logos and anything that shimmers at avatar sizes, because most faculty portraits are seen at 100 pixels wide. ### What should a therapist wear for a headshot? Something soft, plain and unintimidating. A structured cardigan, a merino roll-neck or a knit blazer over a plain shirt reads as calm and competent, which is the balance a directory listing needs. Skip sharp suiting, strong patterns and anything clinical. Pair it with the warm parchment studio or the book-lined study rather than a stage or a corridor, keep the expression open and the eyes visible, and the same session still gives you a jacket frame for speaking and supervision bios. ### Do academic headshots need to be formal? No. The target is approachable authority: dressed one notch above the seminar room, with a slight smile and direct eye contact. Full suits and ties belong to a few fields and administrative roles; for most faculty pages and speaker bios, a jacket or knit and a calm background is the right register. ### Can I use the same headshot for my faculty page, Google Scholar and conference bios? Yes, and you should. One recognizable portrait across your department page, Scholar, ORCID, ResearchGate and conference programs makes you easier to recognize and harder to confuse with a namesake. This pack gives you several frames from the same session, so you can use the studio version for profiles and the stage version for keynotes while keeping the same face. ### What makes a good speaker headshot for a conference program? A tight, well-lit frame with the face high in the image, a plain or stage-like background, and an expression that looks ready to talk. Program committees drop headshots into small slots beside a title and abstract, so a busy outdoor shot or a cropped group photo loses detail. The conference stage wash and lecture hall backdrops in this pack are designed for exactly that slot. ### What resolution do I need for a book jacket author photo? Publishers usually ask for a print-quality file, so choose Executive: it delivers 4K originals and print-ready formats. Professional delivers high-resolution PNGs that cover author pages, faculty sites and press releases online. Every headshot is a 4:5 portrait, which crops cleanly to the square most author pages use. ### How many photos do I need to upload for academic headshots? At least 8, and 8 to 15 is the sweet spot. Use recent, clear photos of your face taken from a step back, with a little variety in angle, expression and lighting. Group shots, sunglasses and heavily filtered photos are rejected because they teach the model the wrong face. ### Is it okay to use AI for headshots? Yes, when the portrait is your own likeness. The model is trained only on the photos you upload, so your face is yours and only the jacket, backdrop and lighting are generated, and every delivered PNG carries embedded metadata declaring it as AI generated. A few publishers, universities and journals now ask that AI generated imagery is disclosed, so check the guidance before you send an author photo or a press image, and pick a result that matches how you look at the podium today. ### Do AI academic headshots look real? They look like a well-lit portrait of you, because the model is trained only on your photos and keeps your real features, skin tone and expressions. Likeness depends on what you upload, so clear photos taken at a normal distance matter more than anything else. If a batch misses, Professional and Executive include a free re-run, and every tier is refundable within 7 days. ### What happens to my uploaded photos and the trained model? Your uploaded photos are deleted 7 days after delivery, and you can delete them earlier from your dashboard. The private model and the gallery are deleted on their own schedule after delivery. Nothing is used to train shared models and nothing is sold. ## Links - [Start the Author & Academic pack](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/start?pack=academic) - [Home](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/) - [Refund policy](https://www.smartheadshots.ai/refund)