Wedding images w/ copyright release - UGH!

[JMWallace]

Ok, help me here. This concept is REALLY cheesing my cheetos.

I (at least for the time being) absolutely DESPISE this concept and practice.

I cringe every time I get an email or hold a converstation with a bride/groom and I hear "...we want copyright released high res images on a disk." AAAAAKKKK!

Here is my train of thought:

I put a lot of money into equipment and A LOT of time into editing them. When I am done editing, I want the work/art that I produced to be portrayed properly...which means me having some amount of control over image print production.

The differnece between what I get printed on a premium lustre paper via a professional lab is 180 degrees better than the "glossy" (<-- YUCK) reproduction that comes off the uncalibrated mass production machines at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, etc or off some crappy $50 home printer.

When my images are shown to somebody, I don't want them to have "Walmart" printed on the back or printed on thin floppy gloss paper. What impression does that give someone who looks at the images about my professionalism?

Not to mention the fact of lost revenue.

GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[24Peter]

Sounds very frustrating. Seems like you need to spell it out going in what they're getting and what they can/can't do with it... Either they have to respect your talent and hard work or find someone else? I think it's just part of managing people's expectations before you do the job. Curious how CW handles this stuff...

[JMWallace]

Sounds very frustrating. Seems like you need to spell it out going in what they're getting and what they can/can't do with it... Either they have to respect your talent and hard work or find someone else? I think it's just part of managing people's expectations before you do the job. Curious how CW handles this stuff...

I agree Peter. The problem is that this is during an initial interaction. Usually it's by e-mail letting me know they came across me somehow, blah, blah, blah then they spell out what they are looking for. It's before I have had a chance to talk to them.

It seems to be the "buzz" statement to use. Like someone told them they should look to get the images on disk.

It's actually in my pricelist and on the contract that it is a $500 option.

[cdifoto]

Honestly, I used to feel that way. Nowadays, I just don't care much. I want them to have quality work BUT I don't want them to have to go through me for some random 4x6s or 5x7s.

So here's what I tell them, before any contracts are signed:

The CD is of ready-for-print images large enough to get a good 8x10, a great 5x7, or an awesome 4x6. If they want larger or guaranteed quality prints they can come to me since I'll have the original files to work with. The images straight out of the camera look like crap & it's part of my job to make them look really good. How good they look and what they look like is the biggest reason they choose me in the first place...it's part of my style. They are processed according to my style, but they choose whether a particular image is B&W, Chocolate, or Color. I take it from there.

Then I hit them with, "If you just want plain images as straight from the camera, you should choose another photographer."

And yes, I do tell them that the images from the camera do look like crap. It's the truth. They do.

[faisal]

hmm...I just had a similar problem. My college asked me for a Disk of all the images I took at the graduation ceremony at the highest quality. I did not trust them and gave it to them at a lower quality. They did pay me for the shoot which is completely fine but they've taken over the printing job and now they're publishing it in the catalogue without crediting me.....annoying...

[cwphoto]

Ok, help me here. This concept is REALLY cheesing my cheetos.

I (at least for the time being) absolutely DESPISE this concept and practice.

I cringe every time I get an email or hold a converstation with a bride/groom and I hear "...we want copyright released high res images on a disk." AAAAAKKKK!

Here is my train of thought:

I put a lot of money into equipment and A LOT of time into editing them. When I am done editing, I want the work/art that I produced to be portrayed properly...which means me having some amount of control over image print production.

The differnece between what I get printed on a premium lustre paper via a professional lab is 180 degrees better than the "glossy" (<-- YUCK) reproduction that comes off the uncalibrated mass production machines at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, etc or off some crappy $50 home printer.

When my images are shown to somebody, I don't want them to have "Walmart" printed on the back or printed on thin floppy gloss paper. What impression does that give someone who looks at the images about my professionalism?

Not to mention the fact of lost revenue.

GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I used to have the same attitude, but I soon found realised that my clients wanted photos on disc which they can reproduce themselves at their leisure and means.

So I swallowed my pride and became a photo whore, and haven't really regretted it.

The way I did it was to offer standard packages with a low-res CD, then as an option I offered a high-res CD for an extra AUD330. My usual re-print order was around AUD500, so by the time I take off my material/labour costs of fulfilling that order it's probably break-even - except that I find I get this extra revenue 100% of the time whereas I'd only get it maybe 30% of the time in the past from print sales.

So I guess you have to make a choice. I decided to take the emotion away and treat it as a business decision only - which was to stop listening to myself and to start listening to my clients and what they wanted from their photographer.

The irony is that I still sometimes (albeit rarely) get print sales from someone who has already bought a hi-res disc - it seems that they weren't happy with what they got from their local lab so they came back to me anyway!

Having said that, 75% of my clients go for a book as part of their package - so future prospects are at least seeing the images the way I intended them to be portrayed. If 100% of my business was images on discs, I'd probably have a different attitude.