A method for providing a preliminary diagnosis of skin cancer, more specifically a screening risk assessment of pigmented lesions receiving digital photographs of skin abnormalities from a plurality of consumers at a server, receiving medical information related to each of the plurality of consumers at the server, assigning an identification to at least one of the consumers and the digital photographs, reviewing the digital photographs and categorizing the digital photographs into at least three categories so as to define category information, the at least three categories including a first category of a first risk, a second category of risk lower than the first category and a third category of insufficient photograph quality, and providing the category information as a function of the identification. The digital photographs may be of pigmented skin lesions and may be clinical photographs or may utilize the optical technique of epiluminescence microscopy (ELM) to visualize pigmented or capillary structure below the skin surface that are not visible to the naked eye.