Question for Portrait Shooters

[d2creative]

So this is not really my bag but this weekend I had to shoot a young couple and their child and dog. We went to the local park and spent over an hour walking around doing lifestyle shots and a few posed. Swings, climbing wall, jungle gym, water fountain, open field, etc. In the end I walked away with hundreds of photos. So obviously I will go through them and ditch the blurry ones, over exposed, closed eyes, etc. But even still, that leaves a lot of images. This leaves me with two questions.

1. Do you show them all? How many would you feel is an acceptable amount to show without overwhelming the client? If you heavily narrow down the selection, what's your criteria/process?

2. I don't want to spend a lot of time processing pics they are not going to want. I can do some across the board adjustments in Lightroom but since the light was changing, i was switching between full manual and aperture modes, changing lenses, etc I have a variety of exposure levels. And even the ones that look fine as is, i know they could look amazing with some tinkering. So when the client is only paying for a few fully retouched images, what do you do with all these images?

I appreciate any insight you can offer.
Thanks!

[epoh]

For an hour session I usually end up with 20-30 images that I feel are worth presenting to the customer. I generally use Bridge to go through them. I do a first pass and remove all the 'bad' images - not properly exposed, closed eyes, hair in the face, whatever. Then I start rating them with the the star system. Once I've rated them all I can usually see pretty easily which will get the full edit treatment. I do all my editing before presenting anything to the customer.

[HotHolly]

1. We only show a select # of fully processed proofs. Studios that do that often show far less than studios that dont. For a typical family session, we proof 12-15. The average (if there is such a thing) of unprocessed proofs for a session seems to be b/t 60-80 based on chatter Ive heard lately. That number shifts of course, based on tons of things. We've found that clients ALWAYS purchase the processed proofs. I can make a whole album they didnt even know they wanted and when they see it - they buy it. Eventually someone will pass, but its been years and so far no one has skipped it. Worth the time? Yes. You might want to select some of your session favs and process those. Put them at the beginning and let them know you already processed them.

2. We only shoot based on the number of final proofs the client is buying. If you have a ton of shots that are getting tossed, your session was too long if you have stuff you cant do anything with. I dont have left overs. I shoot for what I need and not much more.

If you have that many nice pics that the family would most likely want, I'd put the entire session into an album. Sell the album to them. Tell them they can get it for X% off if they purchase a wall print too or something like that. Most people think 5x7 and 8x10 is big. Bait them to buy bigger and unload all your stuff in one swoop.

[lyncca]

Originally Posted by epoh

For an hour session I usually end up with 20-30 images that I feel are worth presenting to the customer. I generally use Bridge to go through them. I do a first pass and remove all the 'bad' images - not properly exposed, closed eyes, hair in the face, whatever. Then I start rating them with the the star system. Once I've rated them all I can usually see pretty easily which will get the full edit treatment. I do all my editing before presenting anything to the customer.

+1... As I have gotten better and better, I shoot less (not click happy anymore) and show a higher percentage (the quality of what I take is better). So, I shoot around 75-100 (sometimes less) and show about 25-30. It is rare, but has happened recently where I had two amazing shoots and I processed about 45 on each. Both couples bought the entire disk; which neither planned going in.

I never show unprocessed images.

[J Eddington]

My experience has been If I show more than 30 my sales will go down, for this type of session. Just too big of a decision for your client. Show big sell big.

[ThiNguyen]

Originally Posted by lyncca

+1...

I never show unprocessed images.

I agree with Lyncca on this one. Showing poor, unprocessed pictures does not help your image.

[d2creative]

Thanks for the responses!

Ok, here's the thing. I'm sure i totally screwed this up but had no idea how the session was going to go. Like i said, I was out of my element on this one. I was called out of the blue and had priced it more like a headshot where it was X amount for the session and that included 3 fully retouched shots and it was X amount for additional fully retouched shots. First off, they are one of my architecture clients. Two, they are kinda family friends. And three, they know this isn't my specialty... so they said the fee and # of processed pics was fine but they want the rest on cd. Due to all the above, in this particular case this is fine with me. I'm still getting paid AND it's a learning experience for me all the way around so it's win win for both of us. But NOW, I can take this experience to learn the correct way to go about it and I really appreciate the responses so far. I've already learned some.

One question i still have that has to do with whittling down the selection is this... Let's say you have the family set up and posed and you start taking pics, trying to get the child and dog to look at you, etc. You immediately know which are trash and which are keepers, but you may end up with 10 good shots where everyone's eyes are open, looking at you, etc. But their facial expressions or the tilt of their heads or anything like that may be different between them. You may like the way the child looks in one, but the parents may like the way she looks in another. So I'm afraid to make the decision myself. What do you do in this case?

Thanks!

[HeatherLou]

Depending on the session, I pick the top 15-20 shots, fully process them, and that is what I show to the client.

[epoh]

Originally Posted by d2creative

So I'm afraid to make the decision myself. What do you do in this case?

Thanks!

Suck it up and make a decision! LoL. OR, post the shots in question on the forum here and we'll help you decide!

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by epoh

Suck it up and make a decision! LoL.

LOL! I was afraid you were gonna say that.

[J Eddington]

or of you need to combine them to get one winning shot.

[lyncca]

Yea, I just make a decision. If they ask me about a particular one; and it was technically fine, but just wasn't a favorite of mine, I will process and show them. If there were technical problems, I will just tell them that. I make no promise that every shot will make the end cut.

I get really picky about what I show since I have to process all of them :)

[BWangPhoto]

Originally Posted by ThiNguyen

I agree with Lyncca on this one. Showing poor, unprocessed pictures does not help your image.

I quoted you, but it is not to say that you have poor quality and images. I just completely disagree with this statement, on two important levels. 1.) That is exactly what a proof is...UNPROCESSED. If you "process" a proof and do extensive photoshop it is no longer a proof. (Not to mention this puts you selling on speculation) AND 2.) you have to charge more to account for your time in photoshop, IF you want to make a decent profit from your images.

We make minimal adjustments on our proofs, as most are ready to go out of the camera. (If you have to do more than that, you need to learn how to work your camera or lights better.) A poor, photo is a poor photo, no amount of photoshop is going to make it right.

The images on our walls in the display room and studio is our proof that a final print will be fantastic. Each proof does not need individual attention in photoshop. You are wasting loads of valuable time, and NOT getting paid for it when most times a family will purchase 2, maybe three images of the ones you proof, and a large wall print. THOSE are the images we work on in photoshop. If you proof 30 images, you just wasted alot of time on the remaining 16-17 images they will not buy.

I don't know about you, but doing several family sessions a week, there isn't enough time to do much more than minimal adjustments in LR and send them to pro select.

Why waste time processing (extensively) images that you may not sell...if you account for you time on those images and what you sell, I can assure you it will have a drastic affect on your bottom line. We average about 1500.00 on a typical family session and do NO processing, just minor adjustments to 'proofs.'

Besides, who is going to see those proofs "unprocessed" that matter? You are going to send the client home with a processed, beautiful print, so no one will ever see the images without processing and the client that does will have no questions if they are pleased with the end result, the print.

[lyncca]

I agree you shouldn't have to do much work to make a photo look correct. I do minor lightroom adjustments for that. Then I typically do batch conversions in PS for skin and sharpening. I do some special effects on some of the photos if I want to.

I can tell you, in my experience, doing these things made people feel like they looked fantastic, which DID make a difference to my bottom line. People purchased way more because they could actually see the final product. It didn't matter how many of my other photos people saw; it is when they saw themselves that made a difference.

Now, I don't do extensive acne cleanup, liquifying, etc. unless the photo is purchased.
This process is just mine; and is working for me. I don't process hundreds of pictures except for weddings. Most of those beyond the portraits are also batch processed.

[MRCPix]

I like this thread.
I usually just do some minor adjustments in LR and put the proofs up for the client to see then I work on the ones they select(if needed). That way I don't waste time fully processing images that the client doesn't want.