Digital negatives selling

<p>Hi, I am doing weddings for some time now, and always give the digital negatives in JPG format to my client once images are retouched. Full sized images.<br>

Now lately I noticed, that there's a common practice of NOT giving the clients the negatives, but selling them separately. It does not make any sense to me, so here's my question.<br>

The couple pays a photographer to get PICTURES in the end.<br>

If you not giving them the disk - what DO you give them? I mean, when they hire you, they expect the result and the result is their wedding images.<br>

Am I missing something?</p>

<p>Thanks a lot!!<br>

Julian<br>

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<p>What the customer expects to receive should be outlined well before the wedding, for me even before the contract but definitely by the time the contract is written up. The customer usually pays me for my time (meeting with them, possibly the rehearsal, the wedding day, processing the images etc), their album, and print(s). I expect to receive some orders for prints from the couple and their family and friends. If I sell/give them the CD of images I can almost guarantee that I will receive little to no print orders. Therefore I have to sell the CD of images for what I value my possible print order. I'm sure others will give there 2 cents especially because everyone sells differently some don't even offer digital files and some just shoot and burn and there's other in between. Hope that helps! </p>

<p>It depends on the client. Some clients want a print package, an album and a coffee table book all as part of their photography package, some don't want to spend money on that, thinking that they can get prints made anywhere for dirt cheap. </p>

<p>Personally, I price the package based on what I'm delivering, so if I include a bunch of prints, it's going to cost them more, and if they want a DVD/R w/ copyright release, it's going to cost something. If they elect neither, I give them a proofing CD, and put their images in a gallery online, so they (or their family) can order prints directly. It's up to them, and what their budget is.</p>

Juliea- - "The couple pays a photographer to get PICTURES in the end."

 

My strong belief is your talent is worth a lot so why would phtotographers give away there talent for free?

 

There is a lady in New York that worked for the Rolling Stones Magazine and she was broke. The banks gave her a several million dollar loan, something like $20 million, the value of her negatives.

 

Because of this I usually don't give away my work.

 

Last year a couple called me and asked if I still had the negatives from a wedding about 10 years ago. I did! They reordered and I made another decent reorder sale.

 

You can do as you wish, most photographers here in the US give the CD's away, as part of the wedding package. If someone offered me around $4000 well I'd probably sell the rights to them. I've been doing this since the late 1980's so I feel it works for me; yet everyone and every studio is setup differently.

 

So the only reason I keep them is they are mine. I shot them and they are copyrighted. This is my talent. Talent has to be worth something and it's probably wise to figure out what you are worth.

 

I also shoot nature work and corporate work, so if someone wants to use my images well there is a one time use for the image. My going rate is $5000 for a front cover for a magazine and as low as $100 for a non profit magazine, but not a cover image. It's a few bucks more for a cover.

<p>Bob, thank you for clarification, but I am not actually giving the RAW files away, only jpgs.<br>

And regarding prints, I think it's not fair for the people to get prints much more expensive than if they just print them at Adorama or so. I am not looking to profit from prints, and they are paying for an album anyway.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Now lately I noticed, that there's a common practice of NOT giving the clients the negatives, but selling them separately.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's about giving best value to the client. The high res files have a value - a significant value. If you give them to the client every time, then the client is in effect being forced to buy them, whether they are really interested in buying them or not. That is not necessarily in the client's best interests.</p>

<p>To put it another way, the full res files have a value to you. Let's say for the sake of argument, that the high res files are worth $1000 in terms of the possible sales of prints and albums you may get from them. Let's say that, when you do a wedding, your target is to make $3000 value out of the wedding to meet your profit target and make the wedding worthwhile for you to do.</p>

<p>One option is to charge the client $3000, and give them the files, whether they really want them or not. Another option is to charge the client $2000, and give the client the option of whether to use the remaining $1000 towards an album, to buy the high res images, to buy prints, or to wait and perhaps buy the disc at a later date when they have enough money gathered. If I were the client, I would like to have the choice.</p>

<p>In practise, a lot of clients really are not interested in the disc of images. Many don't really know what to do with it, they don't understand about image resolution, they don't know how and where to get good print quality, they don't know how to turn them into an album, they may not realise the disc is valuable, they may lose or scratch it, some people don't like computers, some don't have the time to deal with such things and would rather the photographer did what photographers do, and so on. What many really want is an album, and some beautifully prepared prints.</p>

<p>When you're giving them the disc, you're giving them something very valuable - valuable to you, but whether they appreciate it or want it or not, or are prepared to pay a higher fee than they need to because it's included is another matter.</p>

<p>I can tell 90% of my clients ask if they get a disk with all images on the very first consultation.<br>

I give it for free, I don't have any value in it, it's not my pictures. Besides, all my couple buy albums. I don't see a point to charge people for nothing, and those images are nothing to me, it's just a disk.<br>

I am also do not want to make money on prints, it's not fair, clients can print them by themselves for much cheaper at the same place I'd print them.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I don't see a point to charge people for nothing, and those images are nothing to me, it's just a disk</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But do you really feel such a disconnect from your own images - "those images are nothing to me"? And do clients actually like the photographer to regard the images as something they are not connected to, that are of such little consequence that they are given away without a thought? I think most (good) clients understand when the photographer sees the images as his/her babies, something with value. I think the best clients not only understand it, but they want it - they want to have images that have an author, and an author who recognises the value of the images.</p>

<p>Like Bob, I see them as <em>my</em> images - <em>my</em> talent that they are paying for. <em>My</em> interpretation of <em>their</em> wedding. I'm passionate about the images. That's what the clients want and are paying for. I think if they thought I regarded the images as something that I would give away without a thought because they're nothing to do with me and I think they have no value, that they actually might not like that, it might worry them? I think it ought to.</p>

<p>A woman who is buying a Prada dress, doesn't want to disconnect the dress from the author, from Prada. The designer's authorship is important. If Prada was willing to say to the client - 'you can have the design, no need to put my name on it, do what you want with the dress, I want nothing more to do with the dress, you can have all that as a freebie', then the client might even feel a little disappointed.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>clients can print them by themselves for much cheaper at the same place I'd print them</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The vast majority of clients probably take the prints round to printers aimed at amateurs that apply all sort of auto corrections (typically, boost contrast, boost saturation, do an auto levels adjustment) and get hideous print quality. And at printers aimed at the professional printers you get such hugely differing output based on how their set up is calibrated, goodness knows how their final prints will look if the client picks a random one. I prepare images totally differently depending on who is printing them. It's not only the client's problem, it's also the photographer's problem when the client is getting awful results behind your back.</p>

<p>To put it another way - the digital copies clearly have a financial value. But you seem to be saying that you are willing to give them away without placing any value on them, because the images mean nothing to you.</p>

<p>To me, if I were a client, it might start to affect my own perception of the value of the images, and the photography. I might start to think '<em>the photographer is happy to give the images away for nothing, but regards the actual shooting of the wedding as something with value, because he's charging for the wedding but puts zero value on the images. Maybe the images are indeed not worth much</em>'. Which I think is bad client psychology. And bad economics from the client's point of view - the client is not getting the option of a cheaper price without the disc.</p>

<p>That perception might be reinforced by the fact that shooting the wedding and giving away a disc of images as a matter of course can have associations with 'dump and run' or 'gurn and burn' or whatever it's called part of the market.</p>

<p>As a client, I think I would prefer to hear that I can buy the disc afterwards if I want to. And that the photographer is going to be incentivised to do such a brilliant job that I am really going to want to buy that disc.</p>

"Bob, thank you for clarification, but I am not actually giving the RAW files away, only jpgs."

 

You make a good point here. I've never sold jpegs to magazines. They are alway is a Tiff format; actually have more information in a Tif compared to a RAW image. Some Tiff sizes can be 15 to 25 megebytes, compared to a 3 to 5 megabyte Raw file.

<p>Interesting, raws from my camera are around 30 megabytes.<br>

When I print something, I send it to print in tiff format. But tiff just CAN'T have more information then RAW, since RAW is the original.</p>

<p>24 Million to be exact.</p>

You guys are so right. The 1Ds MK 3 cameras I have are around 24 megabytes in RAW, per image.

 

I get about 60 megabytes as a TIF.

<p>Julian--it seems what you're missing is that the disk itself has no value, but the disk with the pictures on it does. In the past, wedding photographers used to withhold the negatives and basically covered a wedding 'on spec' for a reduced amount that just covered their time and expenses. Then, after the pictures were processed, printed and presented, the photographer hoped to make his profit from selling prints and/or albums.</p>

<p>As Simon said, this was because many people didn't really know what to do with rolls of negatives, if they were given, and really didn't want to deal with them. The end result for most clients was usually an album, which is what the photographer offered (and which was the basis for profit from a wedding.</p>

<p>Not every photographer did things this way, but when digital took over, everyone was basically forced to offer 'files on a disk' to stay competitive, so profit had to be made some other way. Obviously, since you've been seeing some offerings that didn't include all the files, things may be swinging back to getting profit from selling the files. It's all about where the profit is...and products are manipulated to still bring home the bacon.</p>

<p>Here's another way to look at it. If you buy Adobe Master Creative Suite MSRP for $2,599 you are getting a lot more than just a disk. Adobe doesn't say this disk cost them nothing and has no value. There software designers have put a lot of time and effort into their programs. Its what the disk contains! Your disk contains your images which should have value to both you and your client.</p>

<p>Also a file size is larger or smaller does not indicate how much information is present. Files can be compressed. If my understanding is correct (someone please let me know if I am wrong) a RAW file uses an embedded data file to keep the information which helps with the files size. TIFF however is virtually uncompressed causing the files to be enormous at times.</p>

Nadine and Caleb, well said!

 

Caleb, I believe you are correct. A few years ago there was a topic regarding true raw files can't be printed, because of embedded data. I don't remember exactly what the topic was, but I think Marc wrote about it. Maybe he will pop in or someone can go into detail. Anyway, if you give a lab the raw files they can't make a print. It has to be in another format such as jpeg, tiff. dng, maybe there are other formats. Thats all I can think of off the top of my head.

<p>And we wonder why the industry is in the state it's in...</p>

<p>LOL the industry is in the state it is because it's a free market. people freely exchange goods and services. I would be loathe to run my business any other way than the way I feel comfortable running it.</p>

<p>As far as the file format goes, it's largely irrelevant to the client. most couldn't tell you the dif. between the three (most). As long as they can use, and PRINT with those files, I'm sure they couldn't care less. I too deliver jpegs. along with a limited copyright release (when included in a package, or paid for seperately... I don't give away anything, a photographer who does is merely destroying their own value) The reason is because that way I don't have clients calling me back telling me they cant open the .cr2 files :-)</p>

<p>Why would someone give clients RAW files? </p>

<p>Because the client knows what to do with RAW files, and requested them. I've included RAW files in packages when asked.</p>