Sometimes I scroll through my camera roll and find lots of semi-okay options that would be great for photo book gifts  if it were brighter, if the pile of laundry wasn’t in the background or if Sam’s face didn’t have those gobs of chocolate on it. Let alone, if I had a spare 3 hours to sit down with it all and make it happen. Which I don’t. Enter Polish My Pics.

Polish My Pics is a new service that basically makes your pictures better for you, without you having to do anything except send them in. Consider them your little photo editing elves that do everything from crop, remove red-eye, improve lighting, contrast and even biggest stuff like removing braces and freckles–doable on your own if you’re handy with Snapseed or other editing apps, but drudgery for a lot of busy parents.

These basic touch-ups are included in the company’s Photo Curation services. Prices vary with quantity, but the first 50 costs just $7.50–not bad at all!

While this could be a great timesaver if you need hundreds of photos retouched, I actually didn’t see significant changes to my iPhone photos that I couldn’t do myself using one of many free photo editing apps out there; see the example below of an original shot on the left, and the edited shot on the right.

They did inform me that their edits are much less distinct on mobile phone pictures than ones from a real digital camera; though if you’re using a SLR in the first place, you may already be proficient in getting your settings correct up front, or good with your own editing options afterwards.

That said, the real value I see in Polish My Pics is in their advanced photo editing services which include more professional retouching like getting rid of a pesky pimple–even removing actual people, buildings and any extraneous background objects from your photos.

Got an ex who needs to come out of that otherwise perfect family photo? Done!

To send photos to Polish My Pics, just upload your photos to Dropbox, Google Chrome or iCloud, which is a snap. If you would rather do it the old fashioned way, Polish My Pics can mail you a physical SD card so you can manually upload your photos and send the card back, though it’s slower.

You generally get your edited photos back via Dropbox in 1-3 business days, and I appreciated getting several folders back into my Dropbox account with my enhanced photos. But next time, I’d love for them to include all photos sent in the same folder as the ones they edited so users can compare the differences right there. It was kind of a pain to go back and forth between folders to see what exactly had been changed

Now keep in mind that even though I called them editing elves, they can’t perform magic, like fixing the ripped portrait of your great grandmother that was damaged in your basement flood. There are more comprehensive services to do that. But for a simple photo book or a much improved multi-photo New Year’s card, this is a great resource for making your photos as beautiful as the memories you associate with them.

Basic curating and editing prices for professional photo editing start at $7.50 for 50 photos. Pricing for more advanced retouching services run from $3.50-$12 per photo, all with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. For more information on pricing, check out Polish My Pics website.