Need advice from industry-folk about our wedding photographer

[roger_g1]

<p>My wife and I are in the midst of a back-and-forth with our wedding photographer because we're not happy with the image deliverables we were given. While the subjects/scenes in the photos are great, the quality is way below what we were expecting. We wanted advice on how to reason with our photographer because we believe we have legitimate concerns that aren't being handled correctly.<br>

<br /> Per our contract, we were promised "high-res photos" which I interpreted as industry-standard high-resolution -- where we'd be getting large, 10-25mb-range files. Instead, we recieved images that were ~3mb in size. For comparison, my iPhone takes files this size.<br>

<br /> I asked out photographer about her workflow and she said that she resizes the photos when converting from RAW to JPEG to a 300dpi, 3500x3500px (depending on ratio) frame. From Lightroom, those images are exported into Photoshop where additional edits are made and finally exported. She must be using a bunch of compression, because the images viewed at 100% appear a bit blurry.<br>

<br /> Because of this workflow, it would require a complete re-mastering of every file. We really want unscaled photos with a reasonable, level 12 JPG compression. We'd be happy just getting the originals (RAW) but our photographer is unwilling to release them. That's fine. We suggested we'd also be happy with her re-mastering 80 or so of our favorite photos and we'd pay her for her $500 for additional time (for reference, the whole wedding photo package was $2,200 for two photographers and edits). Her response was that because of the time needed to re-master to our specifications, she'd have to charge $15 per image. That doesn't sound reasonable to us.<br>

<br /> Our thought is that she should have produced acceptable-quality images to begin with or had a workflow that could enable her to produce better-quality exports upon request. As of now, we're unable to order professional prints due to size/quality warnings on multiple websites. Our photographer is hyper-defensive about her deliverables saying that they should print fine with one of her two suggested printing companies. She said that none of her other clients have ever had an issue with size and quality, suggesting that I'm totally in the wrong.<br>

<br /> Does anyone have any thoughts on what to do here? Any advice on how to speak with our photographer moving forward? These photos are very important to us and I want to make sure we're able to get the highest quality photos available without paying a ransom.<br /> Thanks!</p>

[JosvanEekelen]

<p>I regularly print 20 x 30 (cm) photos from jpg files between 2 and 3 MB and never got a comment on the technical quality. Mine are produced from 13-20 MB RAW files in Lightroom, exported with settings: JPEG/sRGB/limit file size to 3000 k and 3600 pixels longest end.<br>

Your iPhone may create 2 or 3 MB files but not all pixels are created equal and why look at the pictures at 100%?<br /> I have the impression that you are looking too much at the figures and not so much at the photos.<br /> USD 15 per image? Difficult to comment on that, it all depends on the amount of extra work she has to do. If it was LR only it could be done easily but there may be some extra PS work involved. It all depends on her workflow.</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<blockquote>

<p>JPEG/sRGB/limit file size to 3000 k and 3600 pixels longest end.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just out of curiosity - why? Why not save the JPEG at the maximum quality? Why the reduction in size? Are you at least keeping a master TIFF or PSD file or is that reduced quality and size JPEG the only saved output? </p>

[JosvanEekelen]

<p>This are the Lightroom output conditions for printing 20 x 30 cm. They have to be sent over the internet in order to be printed; I don't print myself (yet). Original files and conditions are kept so I can produce smaller or bigger files, TIFF or JPEG at any moment. And now I think about it, whenever I need to use a program other than LR I try to produce max quality TIFF files and import these in LR.</p>

[shawn_mertz]

<p>generally i deliver 2-5 meg jpg because customers complain they can't open them when i give them max size jpg.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>3500px on the long size would be around 8MP more or less - which should really be sufficient for large prints. Filesizes of JPEG files can deceive, as the compression ratio varies a lot, and what is called "80 quality" in one program can turn out larger than "90 quality" in some other program. Noise in images can blow up filesizes, so filesize isn't even related to perceived image quality. Images viewed at 100% often look blurry - not something I'd judge the quality on in itself and alone. <br />So, it's hard to say whether your concerns are legitimate. I'm not saying you're wrong, but the things you mention are hardly solid proof, and no ground to enforce anything, unless the contract very explicitely made other claims.<br>

As for the price she quotes - she runs a business, she sets the price. Again, not saying you're wrong (I find it a quite royal price that's being asked), but again also nothing you can really challenge.</p>

<p>So, in all honesty, I doubt there is much you can do unless she didn't respect terms and conditions clearly stated in the contract. From what you write, I don't think you can make a hard case she did. The only way forward is find a good reasonable compromise price between $15 per image and $500 for 80 images, or maybe first simply print some of the best images she handed over, and see if there really is some issue to start with.</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

The photographer should have exported them at full scale from Lightroom, done whatever he/she did in Photoshop,

saved those as masters (in the TIFF format) and then resized the full set to a smaller size / or greater JPEG compression

level for easy viewing, or selection by you.

[ellis_vener_photography]

$15.00 per image actually is a very reasonable fee for their time, but they also need to take responsibility and amend their inefficient workflow issues and revise them in the future. Maybe there is room in the middle regarding the price.

 

"High resolution" has no fixed meaning.

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p>While the subjects/scenes in the photos are great, <strong>the quality is way below what we were expecting.</strong> We wanted advice on how to reason with our photographer because <strong>we believe we have legitimate concerns that aren't being handled correctly</strong>. . . Does anyone have <strong>any thoughts on what to do here?</strong> Any advice on how to speak with our photographer moving forward?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Based upon the layout and content of your opening post, it occurs that you are quite level headed; carrying a minimum of emotional anxiety and seek a logical and methodical process to achieve you goals.</p>

<p>From what you have disclosed you have not clearly defined your goals. Therefore I suggest:</p>

<p>> firstly, that you answer this question: <strong><em>“What are your outputs for the files which you have been provided?</em></strong>” – i.e. (generally) <strong>how will you be using the files?</strong> For example: for screen viewing in a slide show; to make 7x5 and 10x8 (inch) prints for an album; for mostly all, to make an album but we want three for 20x24 wall prints . . .etc.</p>

<p>> secondly based upon the answer to the above answer this question: <strong><em>“Is the quality below you require or is it that the file size is simply below what you were expecting based upon your interpretation of “hi-res photos?”</em></strong></p>

<p>Answering those two questions <strong>objectively and honestly</strong> will assist you to more clearly define any issue that you might, or might not have. I do not think that the issues are clearly defined, hence your goals cannot be defined. Defining issues clearly means that there is/are a set topic(s) for conversation; negotiation and resolution.</p>

<p>***</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>These photos are very important to us</strong> and I want to make sure we're <strong>able to get the highest quality photos available</strong> without paying a ransom.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Understood, but if by “quality” you actually mean “file size”, you might not NEED the largest possible file size.</p>

<p>***</p>

<p>It occurs to me that the mistake here (without attributing blame to anyone) is that it was never clearly defined and acknowledged as to what the Client’s receivables would be. In other words, the term <em>“hi-res photos”</em> was not defined and acknowledged either in technical terms and/or in terms of usage outputs.</p>

<p>The contracts might have stated <em>“hi-res photos [would be supplied]"</em> (by the way this seems incorrect, anyway, as you were actually supplied Image Files, not Photographs), but what has happened, and often happens, is that the term <em>“hi-res photos”</em> means one thing to the Photographer and has a different meaning to the Client.</p>

<p>Moreover (the crux of the mistake) it appears that the Photographer did not explain the term nor did the Client ask for a definition. Then both moved forward on the assumption that other party held the same view as themself. This often happens and is the cause of quite few posts, like yours on Photo.net.</p>

<p>WW</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>I usually give them a reduced sized jpg of the edit that they can share on-line and slide shows etc., plus I give them a full sized tif at 300dpi for printing.</p>

[nishnishant]

<p>Why do photographers give people low res images? I understand not giving RAW files. But surely giving them a JPG at 100% resolution makes sense? Or is the noise more visible at that size so they have to resize to make the image look better?</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>Who says 2-3MB jpegs are low res? I have exported countless images at FULL (uncropped) resolution from my 5D2 which were in the 2-3MB range. While generally those are B&W images, once generous NR has been applied, even FULL resolution color jpegs can approach that size. ...It <em>totally</em> depends on the image though. Too much NR can easily cause detail blurriness <em>and</em> small file sizes -> regardless of the <em>actual</em> resolution. It's a simple result of<em> how</em> JPEGs are written.</p>

<p>If I had to guess, the demands for adequate resolution are what <em>may</em> have <em>caused</em> the blurriness you noted. Possibly a combination of a lot of NR combined with an image that was cropped to much, compounded with an arbitrary resolution (requiring in such a case, <strong><em>UP</em></strong>rezing the source material). For example if she had an ~ 18MP camera, a 3500x3500 (square crop) is pretty close to cameras native resolution. If, in post, she cropped out a section about 1/2 the frame size to highlight a specific subject, a 3500x3500 resolution would require <em>doubling both the length and width</em> (ie. each single original pixel would equal four pixels (a 2x2 array)), since the source data is limited, the result can often be blurriness.</p>

<p>...oh, and in case this wasn't clear, the file's output DPI is meaningless when it come to printing, what is not meaningless is the <em>actual</em> resolution, or what went <em>into</em> that resolution.</p>

<p>However, there is no way for us to know what faults (if any) are present in her post-processing. File details might be helpful (right click on the file, and view the properties), but can be completely misconstrued by someone who makes the mistake of assuming that an iPhone photo is the same simply because the file size is the same (*rolling eyes*).... better would be to see the images and be able to access the full size images (JPEGS) and RAWs</p>

<p>Frankly, if I were in your (OP's) shoes, I would ask the photog if she would be willing to provide the RAW images unprocessed. It is her prerogative to refuse though. If I were in her shoes, I'd probably be willing to shoot you full resolution JPEGs, but I might not provide RAWs (unless the client knew how to properly process them). Be careful what you wish for though...</p>

[savagesax]

If the photo's "Blurry," as the OP says, there is surely a problem. I wish he could post an example. I'm confused with

the wording Blurry and Pixals. 300 DPI should probably be OK cropped at 8X10. However, there's nothing better than a

tiff file. That's a true high res image. As wedding photographers we usually give 300 dpi jpeg images, about 3 to 5

megapixels per image, depending on your camera. Even if you shoot in jpeg format and not in raw.

 

So we are kind of stuck without seeing a few images from the OP's post, but we know that the photographer did not

give the couple true high res images as promised because of several Photoshop processing, therefore the client

shouldn't have to pay extra to receive what they paid for.

 

If we think of film for a second, the film was developed then a print was made, and then a copy of the print was made

by a scanner or re-shot by film. This is kind of what the client got. I know this is a very weird example, but it actually

works in this case.

 

In Small Claims Court I think the client has a decent case and shouldn't have to pay for images that have been

processed, edited, a few times in different Photoshop programs and aren't really true high res images. At best these are

medium res, depending on the camera and her knowledge of Photoshop. However, The PO's statement says "Blurry,"

and we cannot ignore this concern.The client may win, but the pictures may still be blurry even in a tiff file. Then the

client has to sue the photographer for unsatisfactory standards of excellence. This of course gets nasty, because the

judge has to figure out how many photos are bad, how important are the photos. such as candid's or formals and come

up with some sort of settlement. Usually the client won't win or receive a complete total refund.

 

Even at a medium to low resolution the client shouldn't be experiencing blurry images, but experiencing a lot of

pixalation. so was there a camera problem? We need to see an image. Hope the gentleman can post an image or 2 to

help solve this dilemma. By the way, a 3 megabyte file can often enlarge nicely to a 24x30 enlargement. Maybe bigger, depending on the camera, the lens, settings, the lab, all of that. You should be able to count some of the hairs on the brides head and the hairs on the beard of the groom.

 

I have to add that a decent $1500 camera in low resolution, small jpeg files, can still print a decent 5x7. With a good

$3000 camera set at 400 ISO or less, you can get away with printing a low res jpeg 8X10. It won't look like a high res

image, but it will surely be very acceptable. Hope this helps.

[pete_s.]

<blockquote>

<p>Per our contract, we were promised "high-res photos" which I interpreted as industry-standard high-resolution -- where we'd be getting large, 10-25mb-range files. Instead, we recieved images that were ~3mb in size. For comparison, my iPhone takes files this size.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Nobody I heard of delivers 10-20 MB (megabyte) files to their wedding clients. It's just too big for most people, especially if they intend to share them on the net.</p>

<p>Just as a comparison, Nikons flagship camera D4S ($6000 without any lenses) delivers images that are 4.5 MB on average when set to full resolution jpeg medium.</p>

<p>An iphone have worse image quality than even the cheapest ten year old dSLR and is a totally inadequate tool for shooting weddings. This just shows that files size are not the same as image quality.</p>

<p>If the files are around 3 MB and roughly 3500x3500px then 8x12" and 8x10" prints should look good. An 8x10" is what most photographers consider a standard size "big" photo and is as big as most people print. Industry standard for printing is 300 dpi so 3500 pixels divided by 300 turn out to be about 12".</p>

<p>If you want to make much larger prints then you should have told your photographer that. Prints that are say 24x36" and sizes like that requires special care when shooting and are processing differently to turn out good. Not all images are suitable for this.</p>

<p>I suggest you actually print a few and see how they turn out. What you see on your screen is not what you get on your prints.<br /> I'm sorry to say but it does sound like your expectations are maybe a little unrealistic.</p>

<p> </p>

[pete_s.]

<blockquote>

<p>Why do photographers give people low res images? I understand not giving RAW files. But surely giving them a JPG at 100% resolution makes sense? Or is the noise more visible at that size so they have to resize to make the image look better?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Problem is that people (clients) don't know what they are looking at. A handheld shot image zoomed in to 100% at 36 or 50 megapixels will not look sharp. It will look noisy and blurry.</p>

<p>When shooting in lower light using large aperture lenses, high iso and slow shutter speeds images will show motion blur, noise, camera movements and who knows what. Noise reduction, downsampling to 8x10" 300dpi and sharpening to taste and it will look sharp and smooth.</p>

<p>And shoot and burn photographers who delivers one or two thousand images - they would have to buy a harddrive for each client to be able to deliver their images if they would deliver full resolution, minimum compression images and had one of the higher MP cameras like D810 or 5DS.</p>

<p>Also if you are going to do huge prints you often need to postprocess your image differently to get the best results. Ask any fine art photographer with 24" or larger inkjet printer. So it's not advisable to deliver images that are huge when the client has no idea what to do with them. It just becomes unpractical.</p>

<p>Some photographers also make money doing the enlargements while letting the client handling all the prints up to 8x10" on their own. Then it becomes a business decision and not a technical reason for not delivering full resolution.</p>

<p>This also becomes problematic if you do retouching as well. A very high resolution images takes longer to retouch than a lower resolution because you don't need to be as careful. And most wedding photographers are setup to deliver volume, not a few fine art prints.</p>

<p>The problem in this case, as been mentioned before, is that "high resolution" actually has no precise meaning. And unfortunately the client thought they would get 10-20 MB files of unknown resolution.</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>Noisy jpegs from any modern camera can easily be 10+ MB. The more NR applied, the smaller the jpeg's file size. I used to have noisy JPEGS from my 50D (15MP) which could easily be 10+ MB - and no, I didn't typically deliver those to clients...</p>

<p>Jpeg file sizes have significantly less to do with actual resolution than they do with the pixel to pixel variation in RGB intensity because of how the file is encoded.</p>

[rab_l]

<p>Just for clarity, I thought I'd explain my understanding of this issue as there is the possibility of some confusion on this issue.<br>

So all my figures below are relating to files from a Canon 5d mark iii<br>

When we talk about the size of a Jpg file there are two Mb figures, the open file, and the closed file with compression. So the original full Raw Canon file is 5760 px X 3840 px, this as an open file is a multiple of the two pixel dimensions, so when open in photoshop is a 63.3Mb file.<br>

I then save this as a Jpg maintaining the 5760 x 3840 pixels at a compression setting of 11 in photoshop [ I do this as if I open a jpg that is 8Mb as a closed file, then re-save it at 12 it will close as a larger file size than it started at, but 11 seems to keep the file size the same], the file size will typically be between 8Mb and 16Mb, this depends on how much detail is in the image, so tree foliage and grass will compress less successfully [16Mb] than say a white button on a white cloth [8Mb].<br>

If i do as your photographer has and downsize the file to 3500px on the long side it will become 2333 on the short, giving me an open file of 23.4Mb. If I use my same save quality of 11 my closed compressed file becomes from about 3Mb to about 6Mb, again depending on detail. So this would tally with the file sizes you have, which would tell me the files have been saved at a high quality, low compression, for those pixel dimensions.<br>

I haven't at any point given a dpi value as this can be set in photoshop to whatever figure you wish to put in and doesn't affect the file size or quality one way or the other, however if I have a file that has a dpi value set and then change the figure in photoshop, photoshop will by default resample the image making it larger or smaller depending on the dpi I set, however if I un-tick the resample box the file size will stay exactly the same, both open and closed regardless of the dpi value I enter.<br>

My experience almost no one ever understands this, the number of times I've had people in the industry tell me the file is only 150 dpi and too small, so rather than explain it, I've changed the file to 300 without resampling therefore sending them back the exact same file, same dimension, same quality but with the box saying 300 instead of 150, and they're happy.<br>

Don't send clients tiff files unless they want to make lot's of lossless changes to them, a jpg is much smaller, printable unlike a tiff, and easier for most people to handle on there computer, there is no quality difference in first generation tiffs and Jpgs made from the same raw file.<br>

As a wet print is usually made on paper requiring a resolution of 240dpi your 3500 pixel file will print up to 14.5 inches on the long side without loss of quality, I think you could go bigger on an inkjet as they mostly work at 150dpi [although I don't claim to be an expert on inject, but it's what I was told] without a discernible loss of quality.</p>

 

[michaelmowery]

<p>High resolution means a resolution thats printable 200ppi or 300ppi. The 3mb size you speak of, is that when the image is open in photoshop? You said your files are 3500px on the long side at 300ppi. Thats the standard size most photographer give to clients. My files closed are 2.8mb and 11mb open. </p>