Photos on My Space

[carrbowl]

Has anyone dealt with someone that just wanted some photos for MySpace?? How did you deal with it....or how would you deal with it.

[TheObiJuan]

I'd shoot your regular rates; whatever the client chooses to do with the photos is there concern.
I suppose you don't need to deal with prints under that circumstance. ;)

I've shot pics for Facebook and treated it as if it was a portfolio shoot. Everyone deserves my best regardless of the photo's intention.

[my3peas]

Charge regular session fees (you should be paid for your time), sell either low or high res files. If you want to be sure you're credited for the images on myspace, make sure it's in your contract.

or send them to Sheffield Quigley

[fivegrand]

Regular rates in most cases, though it does depend on who it is.

If Bobbie Billard (Or Christina Dolce or Tila Tequila) wants me to shoot her for her myspace page, you damn skippy I'll do it for trade (but if she wants me to shoot her for her site, everything goes to regular rates).

It seems counter to the traditional 'compensation commensurate to circulation' - but a "name" like that with tens of thousands of "friends" in their network is incredible, powerful exposure - and that's some exposure that DOES lead to revenue.

Many of these girls with paysites that are on MySpace will shoot for three or four images, gauge the response to the images, and based on that will or won't commission a full shoot for their sites. I look at it as a "fanbase test" or a focus group analysis type of thing.

[Double H]

On a related note, I just read a discussion on Theknot.com that said that when photos are posted on Myspace and Facebook that copyright/reproduction rights are then "given" to those sites [incorrectly, of course] and they can do whatever they want with the photos. The post went on to say that those sites were actually selling some of the images as stock photos. Any confirmation?

RM

[PeteQ]

No confirmation specifically, however you need to read the fine print about posting images or having images posted to any site other than your own. In many cases websites do state, in the agreement that everyone just click past, that if something is posted to their site that they are granted usage rights of one sort or another. It's debatable as to what they can or can't do, but if the usage contract of the site says that if you post it they can use it, just know that there is a chance they will and be prepared to fight about it or live with it.

Best bet is to find out from the site itself and if you don't like their wording, do not post there, contact them and get a straigt answer from each individual site. Bottom line is if it is on the internet, expect it to be stolen and posted somewhere else. Register your images so that if they are used illegally you have recourse. All too many times we see people complaining their images are stolen and what can they do about it and they haven't done the best thing they can do and that is to register their images so that any infringement can be vigorously pursued.

[brad]

Seeing this trend, I've updated my pricing to include a CD with all purchases... and on the CD are "websized" versions they can put up on their myspace, facebook, whatever..... oh, and those happen to look just like the shots I post here...



Complete with logo, copyright notice, and website... so all their friends can see it, too. LOL

[carrbowl]

Brad I can't get your EXIF info...can you tell me what size and dpi you put your photos? And do you ever just sell the low resolution? Just curious what others are doing...

[brad]

My "web sized" images are about 800 pixels on the longest side.. dpi doesn't matter (and I won't get into the reasons why, that's another thread.. search for dpi if you are interested).. These days for non-wedding portrait work, I always am selling the full rez version of the files....

(I changed the file above to the full sized, but still web sized version... you can look at the EXIF on that one.)

[carrbowl]

Thanks Brad...it's not as clear as mud...maybe cloudy water...but I know now..it's just how wide and high the photo is that matters most.

From another post from Brad.........

"Always send the largest file you can to a printer to get it printed... the printer has software that will extrapolate if needed to make it bigger.

DPI is *not* a piece of information that matters except when the image is being rendered. And it is *not* something that has any effect on the image data itself. An image that is 3000 pixels by 2000 pixels will always be 3000 pixels by 2000 pixels whether the DPI says 100dpi or 300dpi.

What DPI means is how the image is rendered when displayed or printed. A 3000 pixel by 2000 pixel image printed 30 inches by 20 inches will be at 100dpi. If you print it at 300 DPI, it will be 10 inches by about 7 inches (6 2/3 inches actually).

All you do is tell the display mechanism how big you want the image, it makes the calculations it needs to display it. My color laser is *capable* of 2400 dpi, that doesn't mean it printed my 3000 pixel by 2000 pixel image at 2400dpi... if it had, it would be really, really, really small. It means that it sprayed 2400 dots per inch of paper... it doesn't mean each one of those correlated to the pixels of your image.

Same goes for a 1000 pixel by 800 pixel image that you try to blow up to 20 inches by 16 inches. The printer may be spraying 2400 dots per inch, but your image isn't big enough to give it that much... so it will have to interpolate the image to be bigger... and its gonna look like hell cause I don't care what software you have, you aren't gonna make an image that small look good at 20x16 inches.

People will try and tell you that if you do online proofs to set the DPI of the image to 1 to stop people from copying it... that's BS. The printer ignores that number... if you want to stop people from copying and printing it, don't put an online proof up bigger than about 400 by 600 pixels... they might get a 4x6 out of it, but it will look lousy any bigger.

Clear as mud?"

[brad]

Hehe.. now you know why I didn't want to type all that again last night at 11:30?

[fivegrand]

I like printing 4256x3250 @ 1.5 dpi