Our Review and Advertising policies [Articles, Reviews and YouTube]

Reviews, articles and our YouTube videos

These are the review and advertising policies for the Northlight Images web site and Keith’s YouTube channel.

We’re frequently asked to review and comment on new software and hardware in the fields of photography, digital imaging, colour management and printing.

We pride ourselves on our independence when giving advice and we do not sell hardware or software.

If you have a question about specific aspects of items reviewed, then please feel free to mail us. We really do welcome feedback and questions about our reviews.

One other thing – we almost never recommend ‘best products’ so no spurious awards or scores out of a hundred. [See our reasons why]

If you would like to discuss getting a product reviewed, please do ask.

We are happy to evaluate products under NDA if appropriate and are often involved in beta/field testing for different companies.

We never publish ‘paid for’ content
or produce ‘paid for’ YouTube videos

Northlight also has a public Privacy Policy.

Review and advertising policies – web and YouTube

How we approach our content, including our review and advertising policies

• Where items for review are not supplied by the manufacturer, we will include a link to the supplier’s web site, as well as the manufacturer’s own site.
• We will sometimes allow manufacturers advance sight of reviews, but -only- for the purpose of correcting any factual errors.
• Where we have been involved in Beta or other pre-release testing, we will always try and point this out, unless prohibited by specific NDA terms.
• Where we quote figures or text supplied by manufacturers, we will clearly identify the source.
• Our reviews are somewhat longer than many articles that get called ‘reviews’ on other sites. We always try and write reviews that will also be helpful for people looking to use the product for real and learn more about the subject.
• A review on this site means that we have actually used the product, and are prepared to answer peoples’ questions about it. It’s one of the reasons we mostly use our own photographs and screen grabs. As such, we only review full working copies of software, not demos.
• AI policies: We never use generative AI for images or written content. We always emphasise human skill, creativity and judgement. As such, ‘AI Powered’ tools and editing software are unlikely to be considered for review, other than for low level image processing functions (such as raw file processing, sharpening and resizing).
• Our only (slight) bias is that we don’t have a Windows PC in the building. If you want us to look at some new software, it has to be for Apple Macs only -or- Macs and PCs … same goes for hardware.
• Although there are similar products from different manufacturers here, we try not to make too many direct comparisons since we feel that comparative surveys -sometimes- tell more about the personal biases / preferences of the reviewer/publication than provide useful information for prospective purchasers. There are many sites and magazines providing comparison information – we take the approach that our readers are smart enough to evaluate the information presented and make their own decisions.
• We specifically do not require membership of any affiliate scheme in order to review a product. Our reviews may have affiliate marketing links to suppliers. This will always be clearly indicated. See also the note about advertising below.
• We never accept monetary payment for reviews – however, we are always happy to retain samples for our ongoing use if offered.
• One other thing – we like to promote colour management as ‘A Good Thing’- so if your software does not respect profiles and colour management settings it had better do something -really- useful.

Feel free to call for clarification or other queries.

YouTube: Review and advertising policies

If you would like to discuss a product review for our YouTube channel – please email Keith, here at Northlight.

Keith’s YouTube Channel has (Aug 2026) ~72k subscribers and over 1000 videos [full videos index]. It dates back to August 2020. Going forward we intend to maintain both written and video based reviews, building on our 25+ years of writing detailed articles and reviews.

Our YouTube review and advertising policies broadly follows that of our written articles on this site. We do not accept any direct form of advertising on our channel – any adverts are placed by YouTube and we have no control over their subject or content. We do not accept direct payment for reviews, or cede any editorial control.

Content Relevancy

The channel is deliberately quite specialised and usually aimed at a more advanced and pro level audience.

We cover a range of topics, but the product needs to be relevant to the sort of photography, printing and training work we do at Northlight – so no portrait editing software, ice cream making machines or electric bicycles for example.

Channel/video sponsorship

We are in principle open to this, give Keith a call to discuss your ideas?
However, our agreement would depend a lot on the actual business of the sponsor, the type of sponsorship and our being able to support it. It needs to be something which Keith Cooper can personally promote.

Our Review and Advertising policies

Writing for this site?

We are happy to consider guest articles and reviews – These also need to follow our general review and advertising polices. If you are interested, please have a look at our article submission guidelines first.

We absolutely will not publish made for SEO, paid or ‘sponsored’ posts.

For the avoidance of doubt, if you are willing to pay for posting an article, we won’t accept it.

Please note that articles are only published here under the author’s real name, the author must be contactable and prepared to answer questions. Any business or trade affiliations with any product or service mentioned must be clearly stated. These aspects of our review and advertising policies are not up for negotiation. No use of AI for image or content generation is acceptable whatsoever.

Advertising on this site

The site is regularly updated and receives some 8-10k unique visitors each day mainly from the USA and the UK.

Advertising is a feature of the site – it will always be clearly delineated.

We have also decided -not- to accept advertising or direct trading relationships from manufacturers in any of the areas we cover in our reviews, since there is always the chance that our impartiality might be questioned.

We no longer have Google AdSense adverts on the site – any advertising is non-tracking and with companies we have a long personal relationshsip with.

We are part of the Google Affiliate Network. We also have Amazon and other affiliates links for products on our site.

At the moment we do not directly sell advertising space for the site, particularly since many of our visitors to the articles/reviews parts of the site tend to come both from the USA and the UK.

This site is a participant in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon .fr and .de sites.

Northlight-images.co.uk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.