Why do you give away your images?

Here is what Becker has to say on the subject...he is super successful and I think his business plan makes a lot of sense...
I INCLUDE A DVD OF THE HIGH RESOLUTION FILES IN ALL OF MY PACKAGES.

Brides love me for this, but a lot of photographers don't. Of course, since I am primarily a wedding photographer, I am all about pleasing the brides. But I am also a "known figure" in the wedding photography community, so I want to make sure to explain my reasoning and perhaps try to justify why I do this. I intentionally posted this in the Wedding & Clients section and not the Photographers section because I am writing this to inform brides of the big picture (and hopefully some photographers will "get it" too).

Back in the olden days (like in the 1990's), most traditional photographers would charge a relatively small fee to photograph a wedding. They would do their best to shoot great photos that people would in turn want to purchase. After the wedding was over, they switched hats and became a salesman (or woman). Their livelihood was dependent on how many 8x10's and 5x7's they sold. They would sell frames at a huge markups and employ high pressure tactics to upsell the wedding albums. They needed you to pay for the physical prints, frames or albums in order to make a living. The wouldn't even consider giving the negatives away since the negatives were the means to reproduction. Most never let you keep the proofs and they would stamp the word "PROOF" really big right on the front of the print so if you did try to illegally copy it, every one would know.

I do things a bit differently. I charge a higher fee upfront for my time and talent and make my living by taking wonderful photographs in a relaxed, comfortable fashion. I also pride myself on providing excellent customer service while delivering our amazing albums. Now I don't want to sound like I am bragging, but that is simply our goal that we strive for with each and every client. As I've mentioned in the past, I am only a salesman once, during the initial meeting, and I don't rely on selling reprints online, or selling anything at all after the act to make a living. I am certainly not saying that we don't sell anything after the wedding, we just don't worry about having to make a sale. A lot of our clients are thrilled with the work we do, telling me "Becker, there are too many good pictures" and they choose to upgrade their albums, but we don't pressure them at all.

Most of our clients can see and appreciate the job we do in Photoshop (two posts down), and are willing to pay a premium for the quality that we deliver. The online proofing also serves as a way to friends and family members to order images without hassling the newlyweds to do so. Some of our clients or their relatives do not want to pay the premium and that's one of the reasons we include the "dvd o' files" once the album is done. I don't want to nickel and dime my clients over the little things like 4x6's and 5x7's. I rather a client pay me a fair wage for my art, my passion and my heart while taking the images, and be a cool guy by delivering the files as a part of our service, in effort to get tons of referrals from each couple because they liked me and I was fair. I am at least giving every couple the option.

The reason a lot of photographers don't like this, is because they feel if they are they type to never release or perhaps even sell the files, it makes them look bad and less attractive to brides. News flash... it does! The world is changing because of digital. In the past, if a photographer gave up the negatives, the photographer had no means to reproduce the images anymore. Now with digital, even when I give a DVD of images to a client, I still have a copy for myself. Brides know this. They aren't stupid. Most of my clients still order tons of images from our online shopping cart because they want top quality, they upgrade their albums and they still want a copy of the files if nothing else... just to have them.

Note to Photographers: I don't want to tell you how to run your business, but I do want to remind you that the world is changing and you need to learn to adapt your business and give the brides what they want if you plan on making it. Always think win-win. Your clients win because they get what they want (the files) and you win because you have happy clients referring you to their friends (and if you do things right, you'll still get plenty of reprint orders because brides don't have time to make reprints for their friends and families just to save a few bucks).

When we finally deliver the dvd of images (straight out of the camera, un-retouched, full resolution files) after the couple's album is complete, we warn them about going to a cheap labs and explain that the photos will most likely never look as good as if we put our TLC into the shot and have it printed at our professional lab. The bottom line is I like being fair and flexible and I like giving my clients the option, and I think that makes my services very attractive because they have a lot of value.

kristinmizo wrote in post #4266844
Here is what Becker has to say on the subject...

When we finally deliver the dvd of images (straight out of the camera, un-retouched, full resolution files) after the couple's album is complete, we warn them about going to a cheap labs and explain that the photos will most likely never look as good as if we put our TLC into the shot and have it printed at our professional lab.

I think that is something that gets missed by a lot of folks...these aren't the finished images as appear in the prints or albums ordered from the photographer. It's interesting to see that spelled out.

Is this the norm though? Does anybody worry about having photos with their name attached to them floating around without even having been colour corrected? I understand the argument that most people can't tell the difference and you don't want them to print as nicely as yours, but does anyone worry about what happens when a couple compares such photos to a CD of hi-res images that have been corrected? I think the danger is that most people don't know why the latter are better --the simply think it was a better photographer.

Or does my thinking not make sense?

I do color correction and exposure tweaking, and I don't sell tweaked files, I only sell prints of them. If someone really wanted a tweaked file i'd sell it to them for a reasonable price.

I give the images on the CD. Like it was said before you live in a digital age. I've been in photography school and now I'm getting my degree in Management and Marketing. I'm part of Generation Y and maybe this might help you with why you are wanting to know this question.

Don't blame it on amatuer photographers that took pictures at a wedding and gave them the CD that's not it. In my town no one gives away the digital negatives and I'm the only one that includes them in my package. RIght now I have a competitive edge over them because there still stuck in the past. The newer generation doesn't really want prints of pictures to store in a box in a year anyways. I myself don't want prints unless I plan to frame it. Other then that to me it's a waste of space or trash. They want them on the computer. Why? Because of MySpace or Facebook they want to be able to show family members and everything like that. Like Bob Dylan said "The times are changing"

My CD's include the copyright release to print them only as a 4x6 and they are sized to that. After a wedding I don't want to deal with people constantly coming and buying 4x6's from because I don't have the time for it. I will do bigger prints, but that is it.

Hope this helps it's nothing the photographer;s are doing wrong its just the newer generations want the pictures on CD's or slideshow's and they want to add their twist to their pictures. The number thing Generation Y loves is custom things and that's how they want their pictures.

kristinmizo wrote in post #4266844
Here is what Becker has to say on the subject...

When we finally deliver the dvd of images (straight out of the camera, un-retouched, full resolution files) after the couple's album is complete, we warn them about going to a cheap labs and explain that the photos will most likely never look as good as if we put our TLC into the shot and have it printed at our professional lab.

If I gave straight out of camera files to my clients with any number of warnings, they'd mostly not have a clue what to do. Worse still, those that did get as far as making prints would have something that looks pretty awful and which would be the worst possible advert for my business so I'll jump in the queue marked ...... "I don't get it" !!!

I don't know...I would worry about that too but right on his website he shows examples of "straight out of the camera" and what PP can do...I guess he leaves it up to his brides whether or not they want to buy prints from him. His lowest wedding package is around $4,000 dollars so obviously he caters to the higher end clientele. They probably just use the CD to look at all of their pictures that they didn't want printed (or have room for in their albums), not using it to make tons of prints for everyone.

We're a service industry, we are required to grow with our clients, otherwise we'll be left behind.

As society has becomes more technology-friendly, we need to change with them, and adapt to their needs. People want a CD, so they can e-mail them, put them on their online accounts (facebook, myspace, forums, etc), archive them, and print them themselves.

You make perfect sense - NEVER give out images that are NOT color corrected. Do NOT rely on color correction or retouching services - the client may not pay for them. I give images with all my wedding packages as well (the reasons have been well spoken to by others) but EVERY IMAGE is corrected. If I find I'm spending too much time editing, I change my packages to include fewer images, not skip the editing.

My philosophy: one bad image undoes 30 great ones. Never give a crappy image to anyone.

notapro wrote in post #4267650
Is this the norm though? Does anybody worry about having photos with their name attached to them floating around without even having been colour corrected? I understand the argument that most people can't tell the difference and you don't want them to print as nicely as yours, but does anyone worry about what happens when a couple compares such photos to a CD of hi-res images that have been corrected? I think the danger is that most people don't know why the latter are better --the simply think it was a better photographer.

Or does my thinking not make sense?

I give them away with their highest package to make it more marketable and more impressive of a package. Other than that, they can buy the photos for like $600

In this day and age, you have to at least make it an option to buy the images because all those MWC's that will do it for peanuts (moms with a camera) would give them the images!

yip. i give out a dvd of images to my clients but they are ALL corrected. whether that be, colour corrected, WB corrected or any other PS edits. I would never give out images on a cd/dvd straight out the camera.

I even hate showing my family/friends photos straight out of camera without at least adding as much as some saturation/brightness/​contrast to them

You will do well!

jjmucker wrote in post #4269941
yip. i give out a dvd of images to my clients but they are ALL corrected. whether that be, colour corrected, WB corrected or any other PS edits. I would never give out images on a cd/dvd straight out the camera.

I even hate showing my family/friends photos straight out of camera without at least adding as much as some saturation/brightness/​contrast to them

RVsForFun wrote in post #4269947
You will do well!

Thanks

I agree with everything Becker said... except I don't give out untouched files. I give out final product files. Print sales are still decent.

kristinmizo wrote in post #4269321
I don't know...I would worry about that too but right on his website he shows examples of "straight out of the camera" and what PP can do...I guess he leaves it up to his brides whether or not they want to buy prints from him.

I have a comparison shot I show my clients: The same file printed on my sisters home printer, another printed at costco, another printed at walmart and 2 printed from my pro lab (1 with enhancements, the other out of camera.) The differences are significant.