Giving the client all of the photos on a CD

[SailBlue5]

I have a quick question for the photographers that offer their clients the photos on CD/DVD for weddings. Do you go through the photos first taking out bad shots/identical shots or other shots before putting them on a CD, or do you give them every single photo. If you take out some of the photos, how do you word it in the contract. Also do you touch up all the photos you give them?

Just curious what the norm is.

[CatchingUp]

I asked a similar question early on and a response I got settled it for me quickly.

When you turn over a disk of images, presumably finished, then they can go back and modify and tinker with any of your original work. If they print them off themselves or get poor quality printing, guess who the mediocre results will reflect back upon?

You, the photographer.

I never release images except on a rare, special occassion basis.

And I just shoot as a partime/hobby/business.

That's my take on it.

Cheers

[CatchingUp]

And I just reread your original post and saw you directed your question to the photographers who do give over their images.

My bad. Sorry

[hypertech]

I sort them and remove the bad ones and then renumber them.

I do cropping and minor level adjustments to all the images. They can come back to me for more post-processing work (blemish removal, etc) if they want it.

[cory1848]

Originally Posted by hypertech

I sort them and remove the bad ones and then renumber them.

I do cropping and minor level adjustments to all the images. They can come back to me for more post-processing work (blemish removal, etc) if they want it.

Same here. I cull out the bad ones, crop and adjust the rest, export to jpg, burn to disk.

[jblaschke]

Don't give them "all" the images you shot. It's your job as a photographer to cull the wheat from the chaff.

My wife's starting a photography business, and this "everything on CD with unlimited rights" has been troubling for us. We both have journalism backgrounds and so understand the difference between creating copyright work and work-for-hire. Copyright's valuable, so we weren't just going to give it away. On the other hand, in our market we don't expect to make a tremendous percentage of our income off of print orders. So, how to balance our income and work with the folks who'll just scan prints in and run off copies from the home computer?

Our compromise was to offer a CD of retouched images with limited, personal-use reprint permissions--for an additional cost. We size the images for 8x10 prints--if they want anything larger printed to look good, they still have to come to us. But we've figured out our price point by estimating what our print order income would be per wedding package. It's not terribly expensive, but it does serve to separate us from the fly-by-night Craigslist something-for-nothing crowd.

[bric-a-brac]

when someone purchases a CD, it's only everything of acceptable quality and expression; color correction and levels where tweaking is needed, images usually resized to 5x7 at 240ppi.

The copyright release is for Personal reproduction and distribution ONLY. no sales, no competitions, no commercial use, etc. It's usually accompanied by a nice letter recommending a good local lab for printing 4x6 and 5x7, as well as the suggestion to order any larger prints through the photographer, so that he (I) can "give each individual photograph the attention it deserves in print preparation and assure the highest quality of production."

[adamfromperth]

I have recently made this mistake in handing all the images over. This was for a wedding where i sold the package along with all images on a cd (aswell as their album). In my contract i stated that they could use the images however they wanted.

The client informed me later that they had sent some of the photos of to a local newspaper and unfortunatley one of the images they selected was an image that should have been culled (i can't understand why they selected this image as there best it baffels me).

I didn't inform the client of my disappointment as they simply are really nice people and they didn't do it with any malice but since that occurance, i have decided to not offer that as part of my contract ever again.

[egordon99]

Here is what I use -

• Full photographic coverage by <me> during times listed above
• High resolution digital files (JPG format) delivered on DVD
o Note: Not every photo taken will be delivered on the DVD. I take the time to sort through the large number of images taken (digital is cheap) and pick the great ones, so no shots with eyes closed, etc….o
Images usually delivered within four weeks of event
• Rights to reproduce (make prints) of images for personal/non-commercial use
o Copyright remains with <me>, but client is free to make as many prints as they want, both for themselves, as well as any friends and family.

As for my "culling", if the subject is in focus/sharp and exposure is good, and no one is off in the background picking their nose, it makes the cut....(I do lots of candids)

I shoot RAW, so WB isn't an issue. Below are some things that "disqualify" a photo -
-Subject is picking their nose
-Flash didn't fire (sometimes I can ressurect a photo from the blackness of underexposure, but sometimes not
-Someone walked in front of me
-Focus missed (happens if subject is running away from me!)
-Blinks (duh!)
-Food on chin of either main subject or someone in the frame (yep, watch out for this!)

Often times I can crop out the edges if there is something weird going on there, happens alot shooting in the 10-20mm range as folks tend to get whacky looking if you're not careful

[egordon99]

Just curious, what was wrong with the photo? Was it something on my "list" ?

Originally Posted by adamfromperth

I have recently made this mistake in handing all the images over. This was for a wedding where i sold the package along with all images on a cd (aswell as their album). In my contract i stated that they could use the images however they wanted.

The client informed me later that they had sent some of the photos of to a local newspaper and unfortunatley one of the images they selected was an image that should have been culled (i can't understand why they selected this image as there best it baffels me).

I didn't inform the client of my disappointment as they simply are really nice people and they didn't do it with any malice but since that occurance, i have decided to not offer that as part of my contract ever again.

As an aside, I actually had a guest flip me the bird this past Saturday, not sure if he was joking, or was really po-d at me....Should I deliver this image to the client?

[adamfromperth]

Originally Posted by egordon99

Just curious, what was wrong with the photo? Was it something on my "list" ?

No it was a shot that the reflector hadn't quite blocked the sun off the entire face. So there was a white spot on the neck.

[T2000]

"It's your job as a photographer to cull the wheat from the chaff."

I thought that was the job of photo editors.

[cdifoto]

Originally Posted by egordon99

As an aside, I actually had a guest flip me the bird this past Saturday, not sure if he was joking, or was really po-d at me....Should I deliver this image to the client?

Sure. Why not?

I cull before I give over the CD/DVD. I also ready them for print. I don't do heavy processing but I make sure that any ol' lab will do a good job if they're not totally incompetent. I also have a list of recommended labs on the insert along with the usage release and my contact information in case of problems.

I cull beyond just sharpness and exposure as well. For example, in Mexico everyone went on a catamaran/scuba tour. Needless to say there was alcohol. I have photos of some bikini clad bums lined up for the camera (ie a row of ass). I figured the bride & groom didn't need or want to see those in their proofs. They did because they were drunk and I'm astoundingly handsome, not because they wanted them printed as 20x30s and hanging on a wall. Plus one of the butts belonged to the bride's aunt and another to the aunt's daughter.

[welkcar]

I cull the ones that are obviously bad or I'm not real proud of. Others are exposure/white balance adjusted and cropped of necessary. Proofs then given to customer on CD in low res format with watermark, unless they have purchased the rights to high res images.

I never give them an image I don't think is representative of my work.

[PhotosGuy]

Client dilemma

Clients choosing bad photographs.