Give Bride Photo CD or not

[stephen_f]

I have been doing wedding photography for 2 years. I've doubled my

business from last year and most is word of mouth. I've never offered

a photo cd in the past but now I think I will. I'm curious how other

photographers have priced their cd. Also, to all photographers out

there that don't only do weddings but also family, HS Senior, kids,

etc, do you offer them cds too, and how did you price those.

Thanks.

[rdkirk]

Products like finished slide shows and digital albums are certainly viable and desirable products today, however I would never give/sell a disk of unedited or unfinished images (and certainly not RAW).

 

The price should be commensurate to what you'd have charged for a hardcopy album. The predominant aspect of pricing is your time and expertise, not materials; this is no different from wedding photography with film.

[mike_hodson]

It depends on where & how you make your money on the job. If you include a CD of images you are not likely to get any (or any additional) print sales. If you do provide a CD, then make sure your prices reflect that.

[stephen_f]

I was looking to sell the CD's for roughly what I would get in reorders. And it would be edited. Most photographers in my area are offering CD's right now. Everybody is asking for it today, so why not make a profit off of it. I have alot couples who buy my biggest packages, then spend, little to nothing in reorders. So, I figure, at least I'll get extra profit off the CD. But I'm not planning on selling it for next to nothing. Any photographers out there selling CDs, what are you selling them for, how did you come up with your pricing?

 

Thanks

[david_schilling___chicago_]

Before they were called digital files they were called negatives. There has been many studios that have offerred the negatives/files, sometimes to be delivered a year after the wedding in an effort to maximize reprint sales. Steve, you could still do both, offer the reprints and offer the files. I would price the files at about what you would expect from a "good" reprint order. Asking what people charge is like asking how much should a studio charge or how much should a studio pay a 2nd shooter or lead photographer, there's a wide ranger of answers. If you'd like to see what I charge, shoot me an email.

[randrew1]

We had a professional portrait taken of our sons a few years ago. We asked for a digital copy to be used on our home website. We were charged $30 for one image suitable for display on a website (400x500 pixels).

 

http://homepage.mac.com/randrews4/.Pictures/Christmas%20Card%20Pictures/0207Andrew_Boys.jpg

[Jerry_]

With film, one drops off the roll and returns to pick up the negatives: labor involved, $4 at most for travel to and from the lab.

 

 

 

With a CD, how would you 'price' the time it would take to clean up 200 or 300 images, then burn the CD?

 

 

 

 

Giving up the negatives is one thing. Giving up a CD with images good enough to print from is a item with a different price element. (And be sure to explain to the wedding couple that a 4x6-inch print will not crop to a 8x10 without some image area going to the far beyond....)

[wedding-photography-denver]

Seem to be a question of whether or not you want the print sales.

 

For me, I want to do the album, but not the print sales. I find it great to just sell the DVD of images and be done. YMMV.

[cjogo]

We still shoot film and include the negs. We do offer a hi-rez CD -- just $45 per roll. The major profit has been made selling the negs, for our market.