Wedding deliverable?

BLUF: I'd like to present the photos on something that looks presentable. These generic looking DVDs don't seem like a very "professional" deliverable.

I did my first wedding recently. I did it as a favor for my daughter's best friend. The bride asked me to photograph her wedding because she liked the photos she had seen, to include those from my two daughters' weddings. I shot the ones at my two daughters' weddings as a dad not a photographer.

It was a favor but it wasn't free. She gave me money that covered expenses; it was a destination wedding (out of town). I told her I would give her a disk with the pictures that I pick and edit. I have spent many hours on the pictures and want to give her the pictures.

I am not efficient at editing or organizing pictures. I finally got my photos in the right order and burned on two disks, one full size jpgs and the other resized to 1200 ish on the long side. I ended up with 440 images to present. I thought about putting the photos in a slide show format on yet another disk.

Any suggestions for how to give her the product would be appreciated.

Thanks,

David

If you have a nice photo printer or have a friend that does printable DVD's look pretty nice. I usually try to get a copy of the invitation and base the colors off of that, put their initials on it, the date. You can try to find a nice photo that won't have anything important blocked off with the hole in the middle, but that gets pretty tricky.

If you don't have a way to print a DVD some online print shops do it, I would check mpix, because I know mpixpro and millers offer them.

Thanks, I never thought about printable DVDs. I don't have a nice photo printer. I'll look in to it.

Honestly, if she's not giving you a ton of money I wouldn't go out of my way to do anything fancy that will cost any money or take up too much time. I think what you've already done is more than enough and I'm sure she will be extremely grateful. And 440 pictures is the perfect amount for a wedding... not too many, not too few. So good job! Sounds like you're a great Dad to your kids and their friends.

I am a fan of lightscribe DVDs/CDs. You can print the release right on the disc, and there are some templates out there that allow you to personalize the design. My LS DVD writer cost 25 bucks, and the DVDs cost about twice that of normal, but that is still pretty cheap. Labels probably look a little nicer, but I always worried about throwing off the CG of the disc and about them peeling.

What probably matters more is the package you deliver the disc in, and just about any store that sells those jeweled disc keepers that crack all the time sell something nicer.

I am sure they greatly appreciate your efforts... maybe!

I also use Lightscribe. Not as impressive as full color, but not bad and pretty inexpensive. And clients always seem impressed.

I prefer the finished look of the printable DVDs. A nice presentation box or case is always a plus.

Hope I'm not hijacking the thread but I'm glad to hear that some of you are using Lightscribe disks. Just ordered a LS drive and looking forward to seeing the results

I went to Office Depot and bought the cd lables. I printed two different pictures on two different disks of the rings. They look pretty good.

PeaceFire wrote in post #12642516
Honestly, if she's not giving you a ton of money I wouldn't go out of my way to do anything fancy that will cost any money or take up too much time. I think what you've already done is more than enough and I'm sure she will be extremely grateful. And 440 pictures is the perfect amount for a wedding... not too many, not too few. So good job! Sounds like you're a great Dad to your kids and their friends.

I had more expense than she gave me money. However, I didn't have to buy the light stands, rent a second camera, buy a battery for the rented camera, 16 extra gigs of memory cards and stay extra days at the beach. But, she did give me $500 dollars. To me that is a lot of money to shell out to get someone to do you a favor.

Peacefield wrote in post #12645017
I also use Lightscribe. Not as impressive as full color, but not bad and pretty inexpensive. And clients always seem impressed.

I did Lightscribe a year or so ago. I didn't get very good results. There wasn't enough contrast to see the image well. I'm sure there is a technique to it. At the time I was putting together Proshow Producer slide shows to try and sell a few copies of that. Between trying to learn photography and it's never ending nuances and Proshow, I didn't feel I had time to hone my skills on Lightscribe.

dcsmith40D wrote in post #12650031
I did Lightscribe a year or so ago. I didn't get very good results. There wasn't enough contrast to see the image well. I'm sure there is a technique to it.

Lightscribe doesn't take well to nuances. My labels are mostly text (their name, wedding date, my logo, etc.) and then one head and shoulders shot of the couple taking up 1/4 of the disk.

Before sending that image to Lightscribe, I take it into PS, remove all the color, and then punch up both brightness and especially contrast. Makes for an unpleasant picture, but a decent Lightscribe image.

Thanks for the tip. Will try it when my drive arrives