photo cd's

[lissaone]

Ok here's my dilemma... I am new to "pro" photography and so i'd like some thoughts on this... I have gotten some photography jobs recently and have more coming once I call them.... the issue is they don't want me to give prints they only want a cd so they can print thier own. With the improvement of home printers is this something other people are seeing? and how much should i expect them to pay??? say for a family or a group of little ones from different families? Should i charge a sitting fee or should it all be included in my cd price? any thoughts? suggestions?

[LadyShutterBug]

i charge a sitting fee. then if they choose to purcahse images on CD, i charge a separate fee for that. it's roughly what i would expect to profit if they purchased prints.

what you charge them for the images should be in line with the profit you would expect from their print order. be sure you give them permission to print on ly for personal use-- let htem know you retain copyright.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

To be honest people need to get away from giving "photo" CD's to clients to control their works unless you just give them sample size files that at most can be printed nicely as 5'' by 7''s but not full file size that allows them to do up to poster size prints since so many shops won't ask if they have the rights to print the pictures since they have them on CD. Yeah it is tough to break people of the habit and the trend that has occured but it is your work that they want.

Yeah it is a bit of a rant but really to be honest when we were shooting on film did the photographer give you a dupe of his negatives to make all the copies you wanted?

[AndrewCCM]

I agree with the above. And if they really insist on the negatives.. then they should pay for them in addition to your sitting fee (time). I charge $250 for CD Negatives on my wedding shoots...but that is on top of a decent rate for the service.

[LadyShutterBug]

my wedding packages include the image files... but it's definitely built into the cost.

my sittings don'tinclude image files. i generally charge about $250 for the sitting, then if they want image files it's an extra $200 to $300-- depending on the number of images.

[lissaone]

hmmm interesting..... and they thought they were doing me a favor paying me $100 for 4 hours shooting. ended up with oh 300 pictures of 3 little girls and had to convince them to let me put it on CD myself rather than letting them download the pics from my camera (what they wanted to do) . I appreciate all the input I've been given.

I think people don't understand the concept of intellectual property. They think well I could just go and get my camera out and take the pictures myself why would i pay to have someone print it out?
The way i was told,they wanted to crop/print thier own so it can be done thier way. part of my skill is to crop and adjust pictures so they look better than the original. I don't know of any photographers who print exactly as the negative appears. no crop, nothing....

[Daniel Bates]

Some do. I don't have their patience.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Originally Posted by lissaone

hmmm interesting..... and they thought they were doing me a favor paying me $100 for 4 hours shooting. ended up with oh 300 pictures of 3 little girls and had to convince them to let me put it on CD myself rather than letting them download the pics from my camera (what they wanted to do) . I appreciate all the input I've been given.

I think people don't understand the concept of intellectual property. They think well I could just go and get my camera out and take the pictures myself why would i pay to have someone print it out?
The way i was told,they wanted to crop/print thier own so it can be done thier way. part of my skill is to crop and adjust pictures so they look better than the original. I don't know of any photographers who print exactly as the negative appears. no crop, nothing....

PJ work quite often has no cropping and at most some levels changed on their shots, but cropping is done even on Pulitzer prize winning photos-less now with zooms than back in earlier days since the photographer can crop with his zoom on site.

Portrait work should need very little cropping in post other than just slight changes because of studio size restricitions, if you crop a lot in a portrait shoot you need to rethink the lens that you are using or your set up.

If they think that they can reproduce the lighting system the camera equipment and the post work for $25 an hour along with the deprecitaiton on same-that Pro Digital Camera basically has a shelf life of under 3 years vs film that had mechanical lives of 20+- then let them spend the money on it.

$100 for 4 hours girl? You need to change your stated rates! I would start off with a setting fee of X amount for X time and then the rate is a bit lower for every time period after that. If you think that most portrait sessions run 45 minutes (I have shot as many as 6 band members in group and individual poses in that time frame in studio in the past getting a lot of good shots-band was on a time limit and had to get back to the venue) then that should be your time block not an open time for a setting. Also many portrait people will say X # of clothing changes for a shoot in the time frame *usually don't charge them for the time that they take to change clothes but tend to try to keep it down to under 20 minutes unless it requires makeup and hair changes also. (photographer will be working with lights etc during this time or taking a break.)

Also SHOOT RAW-NO JPG and that way they can't use any files that they try to grab unless they have the right RAW convertor. Earlier this year a lady (I believe it was a lady) was doing a shoot at her office for her boss and he grabbed her Flash card and started to download her pics-she shot in jpg- to his computer! If she had shot RAW he would have been stopped dead in his tracks.

Sometimes you just gotta be tough!

[LadyShutterBug]

hmmm interesting..... and they thought they were doing me a favor paying me $100 for 4 hours shooting. ended up with oh 300 pictures of 3 little girls and had to convince them to let me put it on CD myself rather than letting them download the pics from my camera (what they wanted to do) . I appreciate all the input I've been given.

this probably is dependent on how you present yourself as a photographer.

no one in their right mind would ask a professional to just let them download the pics from the camera. you said you're new to the field... in time, people will not make requests like this. set expectations from the start. perhaps if they feel like you have little experience or are just wanting practice, they feel that $100 for a long time is fine, and they will pick and choose and edit themselves.

a good contract will help to set expectations and rules from the beginning, so that this type of thing doesn't occur in the future. let them know from the time they schedule the shoot that it will take X amount of time before the images are presented to them, and give them a standard pricing list for the images and/or digital files if you are going ot be selling them. if they understand it's somethign you sell, they are less likely to assume you're going to just give it to them.


another thing to remember-- you're captain of your own ship. if you agree to do a job for $100 then do it for $100 and be happy about it. if you feel that 4 hours of work for $100 is getting paid way too little, that is nobody's fault but your own. if you accept a deal, then work it happily or don't accept the deal in the first place.

[lissaone]

a good contract will help to set expectations and rules from the beginning, so that this type of thing doesn't occur in the future. let them know from the time they schedule the shoot that it will take X amount of time before the images are presented to them, and give them a standard pricing list for the images and/or digital files if you are going ot be selling them. if they understand it's somethign you sell, they are less likely to assume you're going to just give it to them.


another thing to remember-- you're captain of your own ship. if you agree to do a job for $100 then do it for $100 and be happy about it. if you feel that 4 hours of work for $100 is getting paid way too little, that is nobody's fault but your own. if you accept a deal, then work it happily or don't accept the deal in the first place.[/QUOTE]





yes i'm learning that..... it was an odd circumstance to begin with and I was so new to it I really didn't know how to go about it. With every shoot i do i learn a little more. I am also looking at other photo sites to see what every one else is charging. I have a d50 camera so it's not high end by any means but i have been very satisfied with the results.

I like the idea of shooting in raw. I'll try that next time.

thanks again everyone for the input. :)

[Bartman01]

Originally Posted by lissaone

I think people don't understand the concept of intellectual property.

This is only going to get worse over time, so you have to deal with it in your pricing structure. We live in an age where a large percentage of the young population has grown up with open-source and gets their music for 'free' off the Internet. They have little regard for I.P. (information 'wants' to be free) and the ability to 'roll your own' prints is much different now than it was just a couple of years ago. Digital display of images is easy, and demand for prints is down. People also seem to have a high tolerance for utter crap if it is easy or cheap. I've had family members make terrible prints of their kids from some of my images by using a low res version they could get on-line because it was 'easier' than simply asking me to get them a more suitable copy.

The digital age has made (at least for me as an amateur) photography much more enjoyable, since now I can do to my images/prints exactly what I want in the comfort of my own home. However, this same ease of use/manipulation/duplication exists for anyone with a decent scanner and PC.

Bottom line of all this is that when you sell a digital copy of your image, price it like you will never sell a copy/print of it to that person again. But at the same time, deliver them prints that you expect they can not match themselves.

Consider something like this:
Charge your customer for sitting fees, travel expenses, and digital images.
Make your .jpgs fit for screen viewing, those digital frames, and small prints.
Give the customer the raw file (if included in the pricing).

Do an agreed upon in the price number of exceptional quality prints, and then DON'T give the customer your post-processed for printing files. The original RAW file is the 'negative', the post processed file represents your work in the 'darkroom'.

Now your customer has what they 'wanted' but still has an incentive to come back to you for additional or large prints since you can do a 'much better job' than their corner drugstore can.

Also, include your contact info, copyright info, and rights assignment info in the EXIF data of every electronic file. Yes, they CAN strip this out - but that usually takes a deliberate act.

[Wes]

I charge a sitting fee and an hourly rate. I do offer the photo CD, but it's price is dependent upon what the spend on print products. If they spend nothing, the photo CD is expensive. The more they spend, the less the photo CD costs. If they spend enough, I just give them the CD (but they have to spend a lot to get to that point). So far only one client has hit that purchase point.

Oh, and all of this is built into the contract that they sign so they know what they are getting up front.

[fran reisner]

Oh Gawd... don't get me started! This is a HUGE issue in our industry, and I agree... it'll just become more so over time. What it all boils down to is what is your time worth? Sit down and figure out how much you'd like to be making per hour as a photographer, and when figuring out your pricing structure remember to include your time as part of your cost of goods sold. Don't sell yourself short, and DON'T GIVE IT AWAY!! (which at $100 for a four hour childrens session you're practically doing!) I am in total agreement with much of the advice given above. One thing I'd like to ad is "Who do you want to be? What kind of business do you ultimately want to run? Who do you want for a client?" If you start doing cheap sessions and handing off your images for yet another cheap price that's exactly what you'll be known for. That's what people will come to you for, and digging yourself out of that little rut will be nearly impossible. In addition, by handing off your jpegs on CD you're losing total control of the quality of the final prints. How would it effect you and your business if this Mom was showing off her poorly printed, off color little kiddos to friends and telling them all who their photographer was. Mom may be color blind. To her those little darlin's are beautiful regardless, but the other Moms may have discerning taste and be thinking to themselves, "Hmmmm... I won't be using THAT photographer!" This subject could evolve into volumes from me, but I'll leave it at that since I have to get my kiddo off to school.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Originally Posted by Bartman01

This is only going to get worse over time, so you have to deal with it in your pricing structure. We live in an age where a large percentage of the young population has grown up with open-source and gets their music for 'free' off the Internet. They have little regard for I.P. (information 'wants' to be free) and the ability to 'roll your own' prints is much different now than it was just a couple of years ago. Digital display of images is easy, and demand for prints is down. People also seem to have a high tolerance for utter crap if it is easy or cheap. I've had family members make terrible prints of their kids from some of my images by using a low res version they could get on-line because it was 'easier' than simply asking me to get them a more suitable copy.

The digital age has made (at least for me as an amateur) photography much more enjoyable, since now I can do to my images/prints exactly what I want in the comfort of my own home. However, this same ease of use/manipulation/duplication exists for anyone with a decent scanner and PC.

Bottom line of all this is that when you sell a digital copy of your image, price it like you will never sell a copy/print of it to that person again. But at the same time, deliver them prints that you expect they can not match themselves.

Consider something like this:
Charge your customer for sitting fees, travel expenses, and digital images.
Make your .jpgs fit for screen viewing, those digital frames, and small prints.
Give the customer the raw file (if included in the pricing).

Do an agreed upon in the price number of exceptional quality prints, and then DON'T give the customer your post-processed for printing files. The original RAW file is the 'negative', the post processed file represents your work in the 'darkroom'.

Now your customer has what they 'wanted' but still has an incentive to come back to you for additional or large prints since you can do a 'much better job' than their corner drugstore can.

Also, include your contact info, copyright info, and rights assignment info in the EXIF data of every electronic file. Yes, they CAN strip this out - but that usually takes a deliberate act.

I agree with what you say other than giving them the RAW file, you might as well give them a full JPG of the non adjusted RAW file too since they have the source material. I would just give them a sized down JPG on the CD which as I stated above would be usable for Web viewing (they may want to send a photo file to a relative across country to see) or printing a nice small, 5"x7" print for an office desk, etc.

I know about the rut to dig out of, I did some stupid stuff with band pics trying to get my name out there and then that just didn't work so I dropped that work completely for the last 6 months pretty much even though I am probably shooting more pictures now than then and I am sharpening my skills and knowledge since doing that work.

If you give people an inch they will take a foot and if you give them a foot they will take a mile but if you leave the door open more than a crack they will walk all over you while if you try to reverse things, say the client is a CPA/lawyer/plumber/etc they will act offended that you would think that they would offer their service at a reduced rate for you.

If you want to be treated like a proffesional then act like one, if the people are so cheap that they don't want to spend the $ let them go to the Walmart Photo Booth! (lets see 300 poses at $10 each= $3,000!)

[lissaone]

I think they looked at it like well you get paid x amount per hour for your day job so this is a vast improvement. this was my first paid job sooo... there was no contract no pre-set agreement. BIG mistake i iam well aware. I walked in with an amount in mind and they came having discussed how much they would pay. What I got was in between.... yes i actually had to talk them up to get as much as i did. I felt pretty steam rolled at the time but after reading what everyone has said i feel even more so. BUT.... that being said... we learn from our mistakes..... never to make them again, we hope. hmm lets see.... I actually got around 500 frames.... so .50 a piece.....that's fair right???? that's $250 per child. LOL..... nah won't make that mistake again....... thanks for the ideas... I shall put them to use :)