Send Your Roof Photos as Originals, Not Screenshots

Most homeowners who photograph storm damage on their roof send the pictures the same way they send a family photo: text message, email attachment, or a screenshot pasted into a document. That habit works for a birthday card. It works badly for a roof claim, because the file itself carries information that a screenshot throws away. Before you send anything to anyone, understand what the original file holds and why the person reviewing your claim may want it.

What the original file keeps

A photo taken on a phone or camera is more than the image. The file usually stores the date and time the shutter fired, the device that took it, and often the GPS location where you stood. Some phones also record the orientation and the lens used. When an adjuster or an engineer reviews your roof, those details help answer two questions that come up in almost every hail or wind file: when was this damage first photographed, and does this picture show the roof on your house or a roof somewhere else.

Messaging apps often strip that information. Many of them compress the image to save space, and some remove location data on purpose. A screenshot is worse, because it is a new picture of the old picture. It has the date of the screenshot, not the date of the storm, and it has no location at all. Nothing in it proves the damage was on your property on the day you say it was.

What each way of sending a photo loses

• Original file sent by email or cloud link: timestamp and location usually intact, provided the sender did not choose to compress or remove data.
• Photo sent through a messaging app: image quality reduced, and the metadata is often stripped or altered.
• Screenshot or photo of a screen: the date is the date of the screenshot, and the location data is gone.
• Photo printed and then rescanned: the record of when and where the picture was taken no longer exists in the file.

The practical rule is simple. Keep every original exactly as the camera or phone saved it. Make copies for sharing, and label the copies as copies. If you need to crop, circle, or add a measurement arrow, do that on a duplicate and keep the untouched original in a separate folder.

Set up the folder before the first phone call

The easiest time to protect your photos is before anyone asks for them. Create one folder for the storm, named with the date of the event as you know it, and put the original files in it without renaming them. Renaming a file can be fine for your own use, but if you do it, keep a note of the original name next to it. A simple text list works: the original file name, the time it was taken, the part of the house it shows, and a short description of what it shows.

Back the folder up in a second place. A phone that is dropped in a puddle during the same storm you are documenting is a common way homeowners lose their only copy. A cloud backup that keeps the original quality, not a compressed preview, is one option. A copy on a computer or an external drive is another. Whichever you choose, check that the copy opens and shows the correct date before you rely on it.

Check the date before you send anything

Phones sometimes set the date wrong after a travel change, a battery replacement, or a software update. A photo that says the wrong year can cause far more trouble than the storm did, because the reviewer will not know which date to trust. Look at each picture's details before you send the set. If the date is off, do not edit it to match what you remember. Write a short note explaining the discrepancy, and keep the original as it is.

The same goes for photos you took on the night of the storm with a flashlight. Those pictures often have timestamps that are accurate, and they can be the most useful evidence you have, because they show the condition of the roof before anyone else arrived with a ladder. Keep them with the rest of the folder, and do not delete a photo because it looks blurry. A blurry picture of a torn shingle still tells the reviewer that something happened on that date.

January photos need the same care

St. Louis winters bring freeze and thaw cycles that can open a crack or lift a shingle tab a little more each week. If your roof was damaged in the fall and you are photographing it again in January, the new pictures should be kept in their own dated folder, separate from the storm set. Do not mix the two, and do not assume the later photos prove the earlier damage. They show what the roof looked like on the later date. A reviewer can use both sets together, but only if each set is clearly labeled with its own dates.

Ice on the eave can also change how a leak looks in a photo. A stain on a ceiling after a thaw may not match the stain you photographed in the storm week. Record the weather on each date you photograph, and note whether the roof was wet, icy, or dry at the time. A short line in your log is enough. The point is to make the sequence of events easy to follow later.

What Keys does with your photos, and what it does not

When Keys inspects a roof, it documents the damage with photos and measurements and puts a written scope in your hands, along with the photos that support it. Keys attends as the contractor while you deal with your own insurer. Missouri law (RSMo 407.725) bars a roofing contractor from representing or negotiating a homeowner's insurance claim, and it also bars the contractor from saying anything about paying, waiving or covering a deductible. Keys does not handle your claim, file it for you, or talk with your adjuster on your behalf.

What you can do is keep your originals, send copies with a clear index, and ask your insurer to confirm in writing what it has received. If you have questions about the photo file or the written scope, call the Keys office at (314) 220-2333. Ask for the original files in the form you will need, and keep the folder intact from the first day to the last.