maregold

A very open question usually requires a very open answer . . . Do it however you want . . .

 

Some charge for the session and don't even provide proofs. The images are viewed and ordered at additional cost during a follow up sales session. Others include a set (usually a limited number) or retouched proofs which may only be low res images. Some include a few prints of various sizes. Maybe a 16x20 and three 8x10s.

 

Additional print orders must be marked up to cover your costs. The larger the print the smaller the multiplier. For example, a 16x20 print may be marked up to 2.5x your cost while a 5x7 print might be marked up to 10x your cost. As you track your sales, mark up the sizes that you sell the most of the most.

 

Remember . . . You are selling your time AND your artistic skills . . . You need to be paid for both . . .

Thank you, that totally makes sense and marking up for prints make sense. It's just I am cautious to charge more for prints. If the flat fee for the session is $400 and then on top of that they have to pay for prints at marked up prices I am concerned that they will be reluctant to do so. And these days there is so much available to people with their phones that they will be reluctant to actually book a photographer and pay him/her close to $1,0000. Anyway, thanks for the advice.

You're going to spend time getting print orders together, so you have to mark up your lab's prices. You are also responsible for quality control--some times even the best labs make mistakes. Most retail businesses double wholesale prices, some do more than that--a "keystone mark up" of 2.2 or 2.3 times wholesale prices is common.

Makes sense, thank you very much for replying.

Hello, Marianne here. Thank you everyone who answered my questions on this forum. I really appreciate it, today I have another question: How do you charge your customers? I looked on quite a few photographers' websites and it looks like they charge PER SESSION as opposed to PER IMAGE. The average price I found is $400 to $600 for a 2 hour session (and they specify for example 50 to 70 images). However, there is also cost of printing. So do you charge the flat fee ($400 or $600) PER SESSION and then ON TOP OF THAT you PASS ON to them the printing fees NOT making a profit on the printing fee just whatever the lab charges to print you pass that on to the customer. And I guess you wouldn't charge anything for downloaded images they want to keep in digital form because you already charged them a flat fee. What practice do you find best from your experience? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you,

Marianne

It depends on your bandwidth & webspace, your business model + the hardware at client side.

I'm not self employed professional, so I can't tell which model sells better and more easily.

Downside of the low res upload: You have to do work on your files and don't know if they'll sell.

If you cash in in advance (shooting fee), why not shovel everything out and be done?

Not knowing a client's hardware I'd do 3 sizes of a digital album: HD 1080 (or maybe iphone X: 2436-by-1125-pixel resolution at 458 ppi), 4K, and fulls size for printing + offer a service to downsize optimized for social media uploads. - No clue if those sizes are best or if the difference between 4K and full size is worth the hassle.

Thank you very much for your reply.

Hello, Marianne here. I am at the point where I am creating my website for clients to access images for proofing. What I was wondering is do you INITIALLY upload low resolution images into your proofing galleries on your website, then the client selects which images they intend to buy and the sizes particularly the ones they intend to keep in DIGITAL form. Then AFTER they made their selections you provide a CD or a zip file for them with high resolution images or AFTER they made their initial selection of low resolution images you ONLY THEN upload on the website the high resolution images for them to download. Alternatively you could upload high resolution images TO BEGIN WITH allowing the client to select and download images RIGHT AWAY. Which practice would you recommend? Thank you very much for your help,

 

Marianne

I am (almost) totally ignorant of how Health Insurance works in the USA. My Private Heath Insurance costs nearly $500 per month and this year I shall have considerably more than $7,000 out-of-pocket Health Care Expenses, so I speak from this experience.

 

Firstly, there might be differences in HOW or WHO pays the Health Insurance Premium, for example, there might be a difference if you are a Sole Trader (whatever equivalent legal term is in USA – where the business is in one person’s name only and that person is “The Entity”) In this case the Health Insurance Premium might have to be paid ex-Income Tax (that is to say out of your own pocket AFTER you pay your personal income tax). On the other hand, there might be an alternative Business Structure, for example some type of ‘Private Company’, ‘Family Trust’, ‘Partnership’ (using Terms which are applicable to Tax Law in my jurisdiction), that means the ‘company’ etc is ‘The Entity' and for the purposes of Health Insurance the Tax Law allows the ‘Company’ to pay the Health Insurance Premium as part of your ‘Salary Package’.

 

Secondly, there might be Insurance Bundles, whereby individual premiums are discounted if there are taken with: one Insurance Company; with one set of Subsidiary Insurance Companies; or managed by one Insurance Broker. In this case you might bundle your business's Liability Insurances; your Home Insurance; your Car Insurance... etc

 

For the former, I expect that you’d require the assistance of an Accountant suitably au fait of Tax Law and the types of Business Structures available in New York - I expect that in New York there would be many.

 

For the latter, I would expect that the USA has “Insurance Brokers” as a profession.

 

The main point I make is – the ‘setting up’ of a ‘Business’ does not comprise isolated, individual sections and it is usually not a good idea to sign off on any one part until you have the whole ‘plan’ sorted; and where that Business Plan describes a smooth running machine such that your business will work to provide you the best benefit with the easiest daily functionality.

 

WW

Thank you very much for your insight, I really appreciate it. I am a sole proprietor (which you called a sole trader) so for insurance purposes I am considered an individual. Bundling insurance is a good idea, I will look into it, thanks again.

Hopefully somebody with the knowledge will give you some ideas about rates and where to look...or who to talk to for help. It can be discouraging to source Insurance for just a person or two.

You think 7k is A Lot of money.?

You have never been in a hospital i take it. :)

I have had 3 back surgeries, the last one was close to One Million Dollars. THAT is why you have Medical Insurance. It is for Pregnancies and Surgeries, or some type of Catastrophic Care.

Did you consider this before becoming a Professional Photographer. It is all part of the rates you will need to charge. In all seriousness.....Are you sure you are making the right decision. Can you do something else to make a living.?

If photography is indeed your destiny, i wish you all the luck. Many people, myself included, were not able to do "Something We Love" as a profession. I was in the Painters Union, photography was always a hobby, and a Dream Job.

Good Luck :)

Thank you so much for replying, I could imagine surgeries can easily cost a fortune. Some brokers contacted me after I filled out my info on the insurance websites so I will talk to them tomorrow. Maybe they DO after all have some reasonable deals. Thanks for wishing me luck, I need it:)

Unfortunately, what you've found is the situation we are in in the US with regard to health care. For many people most of the time, they pay more for insurance than they will use--that's how insurance companies make money. That said, if you are unfortunate enough to need a lot of care you can blow through that $7000 deductible in a big hurry. The other benefit of having insurance is that the rates that insurance companies negotiate with doctors and hospitals are much lower than you will get on your own. Just remember to factor this in to your rates.

Thank you very much for your reply. $7,000 is a lot of money in my book.

Hello everyone, Marianne here.

I have found this forum very helpful and it has helped me already with a number of questions. For that I am very thankful, but today I have one more question. I am officially starting my photography business - registering the name, etc. This means I am now self employed. So one thing I need is health insurance. I have looked for affordable health insurance for self employed individuals and was shocked by how expensive it is. Most of the plans have premiums starting $400 per month and up. What's worse and makes the health insurance totally useless is that it has huge deductible - around $7,000 per year. So what's the point of having insurance if it will never kick in because you need to spend $7,000 per year out of pocket first. I looked at a lot of websites but got the same result. I am very frustrated. I don't think an average self employed individual pays half a thousand dollars per month with a $7,000 deductible. So I must be looking in the wrong places, there must be other solutions. I know it depends on which state you are in (I am in New York), but maybe you can help me out and point me in the right direction, websites where I can find something reasonable. Thank you so much for your help.

Hello everyone,

 

Marianne here with a question. I am in the process of looking for a provider for my photography website and I am wondering what providers do you use? The industry leaders seem to be wix and squarespace, but there are also website providers that are SPECIFICALLY for photographers such as for example "Format". I am looking, as I am sure all photographers do, to display my portfolio, but some providers also offer online store which may or may not be helpful with the process of actually selling the digital images and prints. So from your experience which providers are best? Thank you very much for your help,

 

Marianne

It seems to me that an important consideration is the repeatability of the printing process.

 

If it is repeatable, you can get trial prints, profile them, then adjust the image file appropriately.

 

If a lab has more than one printer, then they might calibrate differently, and so, as you see it, not be repeatable.

 

My guess is that inkjet printers are pretty repeatable until you change ink or print heads.

 

(There will be a random noise component to all systems, but that can be averaged out.)

 

Optical (silver halide) printers should be repeatable if the optical system is appropriately calibrated, and the processing system stays close enough to standard.

Thank you, that totally makes sense. I looked into several labs and some of them use silver halide, others digital printing press. I am getting my test prints from both. Will see what they look like.

Hi, I spent a lot of years with a large studio chain outfit in the U.S., where I did a lot of QC, R&D, and other technical work in the processing lab(s). For a few years I did much of the evaluations on potential new "small" printers, where small means usable in our studios. Part of this included making "good" color profiles; these machines would often be prototypes or early production models where the firmware had not been fully shaken out On a handful of printer models that made it into our actual studios I would sometimes act as an internal "product manager," making sure that they performed well in studio use. (You might be surprised at how thoroughly a tech support "help desk" can screw things up.)

 

I've made a lot of profiles just to study printer variability over time and across media; the data within the profiles can be compared to see exactly what colors are being affected.

 

I've also made a lot of input (camera) profiles in order to fine tune camera responses to what we wanted, as well as a number of experimental profiles to deal with certain production problems. Or sometimes, for certain purposes, you want printer profiles slanted towards certain viewing conditions; a number of times I've measured the spectral makeup of the viewing lamps, then used that data in the profiling software to tailor the prints to that exact lighting.

Hi, thank you for replying. You seem to have a lot of expertise and experience in the field, so I appreciate getting advice from you, it really helped so thank you:)

"The video that I got the above information from... "

 

What video was that?

If it didn't come from the lab you actually intend to use then forget it, and forget the print profile!

The printing lab will take care of that themselves.

 

All you need to do is ensure your colour-space is one that's expected by the printing lab/house. I.e. sRGB or AdobeRGB. It's unlikely they'll accommodate anything else, and even AdobeRGB may be too 'exotic' for them to handle.

 

If in doubt, contact the lab to see what colour-space they can handle. If you get the impression they don't know what on earth you're talking about - find a different lab or stick with sRGB. A lab aiming at the amateur market will only expect sRGB.

 

It's a moot point whether you'll see any difference in finished prints between sRGB and AdobeRGB anyway. The only difference is in deep shadow gamma and the extent of green it can show. If your pictures don't show highly saturated greens or cyans, then you'll likely see no difference between the two spaces.

 

BTW, the lab will almost certainly not be using a printing press, unless your pictures are to be used as long print-run book illustrations.

 

Converting your files to a printing press profile will almost certainly screw things up badly.

 

Just let the lab handle the printer profile. That's what their job is.

Thank you very much for your reply. It seems that you and the poster above are giving me the same message - forget the printer profiles. I am learning:)

Marianne

Hi, sounds like you have things about right if you want to be very finicky about the printing, AND IF your print lab supports this setup (a pro type lab will). On the other hand, a certain number of mainstream labs say (or at least did in the past) that they only take sRGB images, and that every image is treated as if it is sRGB; your prints would be screwed up in this case.

 

Something you may be missing is a color profile on your monitor? You said it is "calibrated," which is a different thing than "profiled." To profile a monitor, you need a piece of hardware that sits on the front of the screen, measuring color while a piece of special software displays various test colors. Then the software generates a monitor profile. If you haven't done this, there's not much point to being so finicky on the back end.

 

If I were you, I'd just adjust my AdobeRGB files, take a quick look at the softproof just in case anything "blew up," then save as a jpeg and send it. (Making sure, first, that the print house will accept non-sRGB images; if not, then "convert to" sRGB before sending.)

 

A lot of the photonet wizards will squawk about this, but it'll be pretty unlikely they have more experience in this sort of thing than I do. (I've made hundreds and hundreds of printer and camera profiles, some of which were used to make well over a million 8x10" portrait prints per week, and have done the troubleshooting on plenty of lab color problems.)

 

If you are gonna do real critical color work, you'll want to do test prints from your lab, evaluate under the proper type of lighting, then make fine corrections based on the print results. Given that these are your first prints, I can't imagine that you're gonna be that critical. But you might find that the prints are overall darker or lighter than you want; a lot of this depends on how bright (or dark) both your monitor and the print viewing conditions are. Bottom line is, get a couple test prints made before sinking a lot of money into the printing.

Hi,

thank you so much for your reply. It's nice to get a reply from a professional who made many printer profiles. My monitor is calibrated AND profiled. I used the hardware on top of the screen just as you described. Can I ask you - you said that you made a lot of printer profiles, but if the labs don't require the photographer to use and convert to printer profiles and are asking to submit sRGB then who did you make those printer profiles for? Thanks again,

Marianne

Hello, Marianne here with a question. I am trying to print my photos for the first time. I am planning to send them to an outside printing lab. I have calibrated my monitor so that part is taken care of. However, I am not sure how to prepare my photos for printing i.e. what to do with printer profile. I researched the issue online, but didn't find much on the subject. So here is what I understand - We get the printer (and paper) profile from the printing lab and install it on our computer. The next step is to soft proof in Photoshop using the printer profile. So this much I understand no problem. However, from what I read online it also implies that AFTER editing (with the help of soft proofing) we then ACTUALLY CONVERT our working file (which is in Adobe RGB in my case) to the printer profile using Edit/Convert to profile in Photoshop. We go to Edit/Convert to profile and in the "destination" dropdown menu we pick our printer profile. We check the box black point compensation (if needed) and pick the rendering intent (usually perceptual or relative colorimetric). Then we save the file as TIFF and we are ready to send it to the printing lab. Are there steps in the process that I am missing? Is there anything else involved? The video that I got the above information from was talking about the printing lab using a PRINTING PRESS to print, but what about if the printing lab uses inkjet printer just like the ones used to print at home, or what if the lab is using some other printing technique other that a PRINTING PRESS will the process of preparing the photo for printing on my end then be different than what I described above? I hope you can help me out with this. Thank you very much,Marianne

Hello, my name is Mare and I just joined photo.net I am currently trying it out and signed up for free service. It says I have to upload at least 5 images to start using the site. I uploaded 3 and it didn't let me upload more. And the ones I uploaded had several problems. The first problem was that in the settings description fields it already filled out the shutter speed and the aperture fields with incorrect values and did not let me override them with the correct ones. Second problem is that after I filled out the title field in the form and the description and picked the category and then went ahead and saved the image it did NOT save what I filled out in the title and description and the category. So as of now in my portfolio these images show up as untitled with no description and no category selected. I tried editing and then saving again, but got the same result. What could the problem be? Is it some sort of a glitch? Hope to get some answers to these questions soon, thank you very much in advance,

Mare