To edit or not to edit?

[phil_riebe]

So I have accepted my first solo gig. It is a one year old Indian birthday. I have done one of these once before as a second shooter so I know how busy of an event they can be. One of the agreements of my fee, that I made a point of, is I was doing no post processing and would simply be handing over the images as jpeg's shot in camera. I did note they could pay me an additional fee for any particular photos they wanted me to edit. Was this out of line? I figure with so many post production options available to most anyone with a computer that any cropping, lighting or color adjustments could be done by the client. Heck, you can even walk into a Wal-Mart and edit the photos right before you print them. Any thoughts on this approach?

[tonybynum]

how are you going to show them which of the jpgs you'll send? Or do you plan to just pick 10, or whatever the number is, and send them on a disk, or are you going to just turn everything over. . ? If youre going to use the model you described (i'm not saying you should or should not), you should cull the bad shots and only send them images they can do something with - dont send any junk . . .

[justin_stott]

<p>My concern would be that from a "business" perspective (that is where you asked this), is that if you are new and trying to build your business you need to be presenting your absolute best work. Not to mention that if you are aspiring to become a professional, there is no time like the present to start working on your workflow, it is easier to start good habits than break old bad ones!</p>

<p>I would recommend you use a light hand in your editing though, I look at early images when I was working on developing my photoshop skills and wished that I had quit editing long before I did.</p>

<p>If you are planning on having the clients print their own images, I would recommend sending them somewhere online that would do a better job than wal-mart, maybe a frequent advertiser that starts with an M?</p>

<p>You want to produce work that not only looks professional, but that will attract future business.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

[phil_riebe]

I plan on turning over the entire shoot, less the unusable pix. I had planned on just burning a couple DVD's and handing them over right before I leave the event. Most in camera processing is pretty good these days. I just picked up the new D7000 and the jpeg's it produces look fantastic to me. Of course I could run them through Lightroom doing some basic adjustments as I import. I suppose I will look into automating that process. Any good sources for brushing up on that topic?

[mike_hitchen]

<p>No problem with the approach as long as the client understands what you are doing.<br>

Are you going to shoot RAW+JPEG for those images they want you to edit? If the client will be doing the editing (as you presume) then the chances are they would be working on the JPEG but the RAW offers much greater latitude fro you to work on.</p>

[ted_suss]

<p>Make certain NOT to delete any images in the camera!</p>

[tonybynum]

i'd dump half of what you shoot and ALL of the junk shots before giving over a disk . . . dont let any junk

get away . . .

[stp]

<p>I agree with Justin: you want to be giving a client something worthy of your skills, something above and beyond that of an ordinary photographer. I doubt that the client can edit as well as you can (assuming the client can edit at all). If you haven't incorporated processing time, you should still do an "adequate" edit on an "appropriate" number of photos (following the advice of Tony), and build editing time into your next job.</p>

[mariosforsos]

<p>I would be LOATH to allow the customer full editing access and privileges to my original shots as ANY mistakes (or whatever you want to call them) they do will reflect immediately and only to me. PLUS, have you even thought of how you'd deal with any problematic shots? Say you underexpose a series of important shots - what are you going to do? Hand them over to the customer and hope and pray they will know how to apply curves and levels in layers to rescue them? Don't you think they will simply turn around and "blame" you for the fault, even it is easily fixable by someone who knows?</p>

<p>There are simply WAY too many unforeseen variables which can go terribly awry when handing unprocessed files directly from the camera to the client for post-processing. The slightest mistake will DEFINITELY come back to bite you, not just once but again and again...</p>

<p>As for automatic ANYTHING in LR, that's another mistake (at least to the extend you're thinking of) as, while you can apply a specific develop preset at import time, you have no control as to which images this is applied to - with some it will be good but with others it can be catastrophic. If anything, import them as they are and then, maybe (and mind you, I fully advise against it!) apply batch processing to selected images.</p>

<p>I will second (and third...;-) the advice of building a good, solid and practical post-processing stage into your workflow...</p>

[phil_riebe]

All, thanks for the great responses. I believe you have caused me to have a change of heart on the matter. I will now be doing (at no additional cost) some basic post on all pix that really need it. Thanks again for the great responses, it has changed my mind on the initial approach I have held on the whole matter. I will post some pix after this weekend.

[tonybynum]

phil, youre not wrong in your initial thinking. . . just dont let the junk out. . . Many times i've done what

you asked out. For example, i shot a grand opening for a large casio and because the had in house the

people that could process images, and at the time of the shoot we did not know what images would be

needed over the course of the next year, i just turned over a disk minus the junk. I charged my day rate

plus, shot it . . . made more in 6 hours than i ever would have in 10 if i had offered PP. At the end of the

day they needed to buy a photographer, that was me.

 

They used the images for marketing and so they put the best possible spin on them so that they made

their business look as good as possible . . . nothing lost as far as I'm concerned and what would i do

with a bunch of out dated in 6 months casino shots of which i had NO releases for? Some times shoot

for hire and no processing is financially smart. . . Had i gave them the run around about my skills and

my this and you dont know post processing and so on, they would have hired some one els. three

years later i'm working up big to re shoot the entire place after a remodel - AND the great thing is that

post processing wont tie me up from other duties or projects that i'm much more interested in working

on . . . chaching . . . chaching . . .

 

I know people will say, ya but what about copyright, and what about lost revenues for licensing add

placement etc. Guess what, i never gave away the copyright, and they never would have hired me if i

had said: "we need to negotiate licensing every time you want to change modify or use one of the

images i shot."

[phil_riebe]

Sorry for the late reply. The shoot went well. Turned the photos over last weekend. I don't know how to link to Flickr for the photos to show in the thread. So below is the link.

 

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/philriebe/sets/72157625869274544/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/philriebe/sets/72157625869274544/</a>