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Position:Home>Visual Arts> Wedding Photographers...have you recently added files to your sales?Question: Wedding Photographers!.!.!.have you recently added files to your sales!? In all my years with film I have never sold negs, but it seems the demand for fies is overwhelming!. Do you include files in the packages!? Do you have a seperate rate for files!? Are you giving them Hi Res!? Please tell me how you are dealing with this new phenom!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: From the pro photographer forum at dpreview I get the impression that most photographers still guard (digital) negatives with their lives!. The reasons most often stated are * to guarantee high quality prints, because poor prints reflect badly on the photographer!. * making a buck off of the prints reduces the assignment fee!. * the photographer provides a service by keeping the negatives safe, should the customer ever need reprints!. But personally, and I′m not a pro, I never did appreciate this business model!. The photographer is the copyright holder, sure, but look at it from the customer's point of view: you already paid the photographer a small fortune for his time & talent, right!? You don′t cut a check to the programmers at Adobe every time you edit a file in Photoshop!. You don′t send cash to your plumber every time you grab a glass of water!. So when you want an extra print, why should you have to look up the original photographer and pay *him* again for something he did 20 years ago!? These days any idiot can make a thousand perfect copies at zero cost so the perceived value of a DVD full of negatives is nill!. This is what changed with the transition to digital photography!. (Of course the photographer's skill is just as important as it ever was - that's what people pay for!.) I′m aware of the distinctions so please don′t flame me, I′m just saying that it doesn′t *feel* right to keep paying the photographer for extra prints!. As a customer, I'd also expect an option to buy a license for personal use and get the negatives on DVD!. ---- Obviously not a very popular opinion :-)Www@QuestionHome@Com My daughter got married 5 years ago and she has a CD of her photos!. I'd have to ask, but I am PRETTY sure it only cost her another $100 to get this!. I would also have to ask, but I am PRETTY sure they are hi resolution images!. There was an issue that only 80 images would fit on the CD and there were a few more that she wanted that wouldn't fit!. She thought that it was no big deal to toss another $2!.00 blank CD into the deal, but maybe it was his way of limiting the number of images sold!. From the Exif data, I see that it was a D100, 3008x2000 pixels, so it's a full-sized image, but I don't know the resolution used to save the images to CD!. (I'm looking at one that I have on my hard drive and I had messed with it myself, so the file size is not really indicative of anything about the original!.!.!.) Oh yeah!. The wedding and photog were in Italy, so I doubt he is worried about her making bad prints and costing him business!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Many times people think that they are getting hi res files when in fact they arent!. When you see someone saying that they got a CD with all their wedding pics on them you know that they arent hi res!., there isnt enough room on one CD!. Personally I am toying with the idea of CD proofs!. Lo Res images that the customer can keep and do with as they please!. But they will all have a copyright and water mark on it!. Ken Rockwell blogs that he doesnt keep the files!. The concept is that the customer is paying you for your talent, not your business skills (or at least thats what the customer thinks)!. Of course I am paraphrasing here!.Www@QuestionHome@Com There is an article on this very subject in the latest issue of Professional Photograher magazine!. Some don't, but in today's world, most photographers do!. Personally, I did it when I was doing weddings, but I DID charge extra for them, (in high res), and included a statement that I was not responsible for the quality of the prints made by the customer!. I signed the statement AND required the client to sign it also!. I also gave them the photos on CD with NO photoshop retouching!. I am NOT giving away my time and talent for that!. I tell them that any photo they order from me will be retouched to make them look their best and will be on pro archive paper printed by a true lab by a laser printer!. Still, many of them want a CD of the photos just for select snaphots to send to friends or for email!. So I let them have it!.!.!. for a price!. I would usually charge $300 for the high res photos on CD, but that would only be as part of an album order!. I was never a "shoot and burn" photographer, (shoot and do nothing but give photos on CD)!. steveWww@QuestionHome@Com Well, I'm not a wedding photograoher, but I say if they want files give them!. Just don't give the hi res files!. Make lo res jpegs and put them on a cd!. I don't see why the customer shouldn't have them!.Www@QuestionHome@Com I will sell hi res proofs for weddings, studio shots, whatever!. It can sometimes be costly for the customer, but no photographer can guarantee how long we keep someone's photos on file!.Www@QuestionHome@Com |