TIFF vs JPEG for clients

<p>Hi! I've been photographing weddings for 1 year now, and have always supplied my couples with high resolution jpegs for printing and low resolution files for online sharing.<br>

I'm just wanting to know what the majority of other wedding photographer's deliver to their clients for printing, as I'm aware that tiff files are a better choice for lab printing. I'm just wanting to supply my clients with the highest quality images possible. The files will be significantly larger, so it would mean upgrading my USBs which will cost, but I'm not too worried about this - just not sure if its overkill.<br>

Also, I'm not sure where clients will be trying to print their photos. We all obviously hope that people will choose wisely, but I think some people might try and order low quality canvas prints online, therefore would the high res jpegs be a better option as they are more widely accepted? I would prefer my images were printed professionally at a lab on high quality art papers or photo paper to retain the quality, or simply come to me for prints, but I understand it's ultimately up to the client...<br>

And of course I am offering prints and albums to my clients, but these days its hard to avoid offering high res files when it's becoming standard practice.<br>

<br />Many thanks in advance :)<br>

Carly</p>

 

<p>Unless you have graphic designer clients, who understand color space and compression and have well endowed processors with external storage, I think low compression, 300ppi, sRGB JPGs are the best bet.<br /><br />Many people's computers would just choke on a folder (or a DVD) full of 30mb tif files, and if you're using a higher megapixel dSLR, they could be much larger. TIfs only on request, in Adobe98, and for an additional fee... with an explanation and caveats in writing... t</p>

I like Toms answer a lot. I'd just give out jpegs and not worry too much about the enlargements. There's

probably a magic number such as anything over a 16X20 print this could be a good time to to take a raw file

and save it as a Tiff.

<p>Carly,</p>

<p>I think you're asking at least three quite distinct questions here. All of them good.</p>

<p>The first question is <strong>TIFF or JPEG?</strong> This one's easy. Give 'em jpegs. Your client won't be expecting tiffs, won't know what to do with them, and giving them tiff files might cause problems if they ever try to do something like insert them into their own little book, or upload them to a social networking site, etc.</p>

<p>The second and third questions are logically distinct, but as a practical matter, they are linked. Question 2: <strong>What resolution files should you give clients</strong>? Question 3: <strong>How are clients going to get prints — make them themselves, order from you, or what?</strong> </p>

<p>•</p>

<p>Let me talk about clients getting prints first. This is, quite honestly, a very big problem for the wedding photography business right now — at least it is if you believe, as I do, that a photo that doesn't get printed is a photo that hasn't fulfilled its potential. If you want your brides (a) to have prints of their photos and (b) to have <strong>good</strong> prints of their photos, then you really need to make sure that they get their prints from you or through you, so you can control the process. You'll want to make sure that the photos are edited on a color-corrected machine and printed on a high quality printer, high-quality ink and paper, etc. The simplest way to handle this is to hook up with a service like Zenfolio or Photoshelter or one of the many others that links to an excellent printing service, and get clients to order prints through your site exclusively.</p>

<p>Digression: I realized how important this was some years ago when I had a chance to visit the home of a former bride. Right in her foyer she had hung the portrait I took of her and her husband at the altar right after the wedding. My pleasure at seeing this image hanging so prominently in her house was rather diminished by the fact that the print was <em>horrible.</em> Apparently she didn't realize that they were both green and a bit fuzzy. She had made the print on her own inkjet printer. I think that was when I starting making sure that my bridges got good prints of key photos from me, without having to ask for them. (I sent her a good print to replace the bad one.)</p>

<p>Anyway, if you make sure that prints are ordered through you, then a couple things follow.</p>

<ul>

<li>You don't need — and probably don't even want — to give clients high-res copies of the photos. You want them to get good prints, so you require them to purchase prints through your site. (This is where question #2 above comes in.)</li>

<li>You will need to hang on to their images for longer than you might if you were just involved in shooting and burning. Why? So they can come back to you later and ask for prints. Good thing here to contact them before their first anniversary, put their gallery back online and invite them to order prints.</li>

</ul>

<p>I also decided that I needed to keep my print prices low, so they would feel free to order prints. Unless you're charging $5000 and up for <em>shooting</em> the wedding, charging $20 later on for a 4" x 6" print (which I've seen) is a pretty strong disincentive. Clients on a tight-budget (which means every client I've had) are aware that they can get prints for pennies through their local drugstore. But this is just my decision. As a business person, of course you want to charge what clients are willing to pay; that's reasonable. You'll just need to experiment to find out what that is.</p>

<p>Which brings me to the final issue: <em>Convincing clients that print quality matters.</em> If you show a client a print made at the drugstore, they will almost always respond to the quality of the image and basically disregard the quality of the printing. In other words, they don't know the difference. You can't blame them, but it means that, when you try to make sure they get good quality prints, you're like someone trying to sell gourmet food to a hungry person who's used to eating at Macdonald's. What I concluded for my own clients was that I simply had to <em>give</em> them a small bunch of good quality prints automatically. I don't give them a print-order credit. I don't wait for them to make a selection. <em>I make the selection for them</em> and see that they get the prints. Then I hope they order more. The sad thing has been, they usually don't.</p>

<p>Which leads me to conclude that my approach, while it makes me feel good about my own work, may not be very smart from a business perspective. A very successful businessman I know told me once that it makes no sense to do a better job than the customer can appreciate. And he's probably right. And I'll stop there because I can feel an attack of cynicism coming on. :-)</p>

<p>Will</p>

 

<p>its over kill and no lab requires tiff files nor does it produce a better image that you can see. Tiff are only good if there will be additional retouching and saving of files. The industry does not need photographers to include such high resolution files in there price unless they are charging a couple thousand dollars extra for such files. Give the client 8x12 sized @200ppi which is more than sufficient for there needs and for archiving. Let them come back to you for enlargements or higher resolution files for an extra cost. The new shoot and burn photographers are killing this market for those of us who make it a full time career.</p>

<p>Wow, These are fantastic responses, exactly what I wanted to hear :)<br>

<br />Thank you all for your feedback on this. I'm now going to include prints in my package because they are always best seen in their natural habitat :)<br>

<br />Thanks again!!!</p>

<p>I feel that your client deserve the best even though they my not be graphic designers !<br>

SRGB is for web usage only. I have always shot raw for weddings so that it gives me the latitude to play with every single photos in photoshop and adjust everything I would want if need be. Time consuming but well worth it for final printing. <br>

<br />I give my clients high JPG 300 dpi files for printing in adobe RGB. All of my files are color corrected and ready to print LARGE FORMAT if need be. <br>

Never settle for less if you can offer the best.<br>

</p>

<p>Yes the client deserves the best but they must pay for it. You just don't include camera resolution files with a shoot and burn job for $1,000. This is a business not just a quick buck for the weekend warrior.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Enough resolution for a good 8x12" print or good quality on a tablet/computer screen and jpeg in sRGB color space. I think now it's time to skip low resolution images for online use. The only reason for those was to save bandwidth which is not really relevant for most today.</p>

<p>If the client is using a high dpi display or a quad hd screen to view them they need some megapixels. About 8 megapixels which is about what you need for a very high quality 8x12 or 8x10. With some compression you end up with about 2 MB per image. So 1000 images is 2GB. So even a small 8GB USB flash memory, that you can get for less than $5 from a good brand, can fit 4000 images.</p>

<p>Giving out jpegs in adobe rgb color space is just not a good idea. If you want the very best you deliver 16 bit TIFFs in prophotoRGB.</p>

<p>Oliver most labs handle SRGB files quite well. On the other side unless advances have been made, when they put an adobe rgb file on facebook or somewhere you great work will not look so good.</p>

<p>"SRGB is for web usage only"... not true. Small format photo printers (under 11" in any dimension) require sRGB. I'll only quote <a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm">one of the many sources </a>that are knowledgeable on this point.<br /><br />Adobe98 and TIF files are preferable for offset, and large inkjet printing. All other applications find sRGB JPGs of low compression to be "perfectly adequate", if not required... t</p>