Reviving Reprint Sales

[Inspired Photography]

A client of mine recently gave me an idea as to how i can try and get more reprints from customers. Many of the photographers around my area include CDs or negs with their packages, so there is alot of pressure for it.

As a result, i have priced my packages in such away that i don't hope for reprints to make any money... so it is not a real problem, but it is a nice way to make some extra money from each person - especially for weddings.

I had a sneaking suspicion that this customer was going to take my "print selection" CD to a lab and get some of them printed... which it turns out she did...

She said that she only did it for a few relatives that didn't have computers to view them on. I received comments like "they came out all dark and flat" etc... to which i had a quiet chuckle to myself. Apart from the fact that the images were sized to only 600 x 900 pixels, so they would have printed at about 150dpi, the images were not colour corrected or adjusted in any way (intentionally). Mix that with dodgy Big W prints (equivelant to Wal Mart for the USA guys), and you have yourself a pretty crappy looking set of prints.

So how am i going to use this to my advantage?

I am going to print an un-corrected image at "Big W", then print the same image, colour corrected etc through my lab. I will then show this to clients when they visit and tell them "Go Ahead and do it!". I think all but the "extreme tight-a**" will come to the party and realise that i can get them a much better result than if they try and do it on the cheap.

This combined with reasonable print prices (i.e. not what i charge for portraits), and some good package deals should help the dying reprint sales a bit.

Any thoughts on this are appreciated,

Cheers for now.

Rob

[MTalley]

Off the top of my head, sounds like a winner to me.

[natalka]

I once had a former client call me on the phone and chewed me out becuase the DVD negatives I gave her would not work in the Kodak copy machine at Wally World.

I try to educate my clients the digital negatives are similar to film negatives...it all depends on where you have them printed, paper, your monitor isn't the same as my monitor, etc. We can only do so much! Just hope and pray that your clients don't say that the prints they have made themselves are of the quality to expect from you.

Natalie

[ksmattfish]

Unfortunately many people won't notice or be concerned with the difference between a professional print and a crappy copy job. I'm more concerned that they might make bad copies, and spread my name around with them. I provide color corrected files, and even recommendations on what pro labs to use for reprints and enlargements. I set my rates so that I don't have to count on print sales, but I do offer hand printed gelatin silver prints from medium and large format BW film, which is something that most of my clients can't get elsewhere.

[Ben Nevis]

As I have mentioned in another thread, I had the same problem with clients scanning my prints resulting in a drop in sales of reprints. What I do now is colour correct & sharpen my proof prints and then put the copyright sign and my name in red text through the middle of the print (I created a brush in Photoshop to do this). I then get the prints printed small, usually 6x4 inches, and then cut the corners off. Rather drastic but it works

[natalka]

Ben, why do you cut off the corners?

[Ben Nevis]

My way of thinking was that if someone scanned a photo with the corners cut off they would have to crop the scanned image which would possibly cut through the subject.
The last wedding I did, I put the line of text through the middle as usual and wrote the print number on the photo with a thick black marker pen. This also works as a deterent as it would take a lot of skill to clone out.

[natalka]

I haven't given away paper proofs as part of a wedding photography pckage in about three years. But once I did stop the paper proofs, my print sales started. What I do to boost sales at least a bit is print out a bunch of wallet hand outs at my lab, with the couple's photo on the front, if we did an engagement session, directions on how one can see the images online including the password, and the date of when the images will be available online. Guests go crazy over these things, trade them like baseball cards.
I include a DVD of "digital negatives" with every album order. The reason I do this is to give the couple incentive to get their album done. Six months to a year after the wedding I've gotten all I can from the print sales from their wedding anyway, so the DVD doesn't hurt in any way.
When the couple gets their "proofs", they also get a low res image CD with watermarked low resolution images. They really can't print anything larger than wallets, and there are two lines of text running across the image. This is a nice form of advertising for when they post the images on their own bios on wedding boards, my company website is written all over the images.
Hopt this helps,
Natalie