Can I Just Get The Digital Files?

Understanding lighting, exposure, posing and all the other parts of the craft are just as important for shoot-and-share as they are for prints. Extensive post processing is a separate skill and product, and should be sold that way.

And what happens 10 years from now, when your customer wants another print? Do you still have the file, or did you throw it out after 7 years? Can you find it? Did you leave a forwarding address when you moved to another state? How about 80 years from now, when your print is disintegrating and the grandchildren are interested in genealogy? Are you even still alive?

Think about preserving old movies: we don’t want to preserve them by saving a DVD or (God forbid) a VHS. We want the original film. If the cameraman who filmed Gone With the Wind was the only one with a print, that would not be good.

I haven’t shot a wedding yet where the couple have said that they intently DON’T want prints… Its a little sad I agree, but digital’s are just as safe as print if not more when stored in the correct way. With that said I still give out a 6×4 of every delivered shot as part of the base package.

I see my digital files much more often than my prints, minus my family portraits (took myself and printed). I pull them up on my phone to share. I make sure I have a backup. Most of my clients don’t want prints, though some buy them because they feel they have to, and then rarely look at the prints. But with digitalis, Facebook surfaces those photos regularly. Digital photos go on the screen saver on the TV and computer, seen and enjoyed often.

I believe in being a full service shop, so they don’t have to hassle to get prints if they want them, but the worst thing I can do as a photographer is hold someone’s else photos hostage. When I shoot a wedding, I realize those are THEIR memories, and I hate it when photographers hold memories hostage by charging exorbitant prices for prints, not having any way to give a back up or digital files.

My family’s favorite portrait was done on medium format film. We ordered a very large framed print of it. It has faded and turned blue. It’s so ugly now. We’d have to spend over $500 to get a reprint. If we had a digital version, we’d still have that shot to put on our tv, print, share, and preserve for our family. My grandkids may see a faded, terrible version of that photo someday, but they will never see it in good condition. My digital files and backed up three ways. They will be able to cherish those, when many prints of my childhood have become torn, faded and ruined.

Photographers that want to only delivery prints have that prerogative, that’s fine. I just don’t think the reasoning for that as presented here is the best representation of why.

“See, I don’t believe in selling a CD or USB drive filled with images that will be shared a few times and then stuck in a drawer with other CD’s and USB drives.”

As opposed to the old school method of filling a binder full of photos that spends a few months on the coffee table then moves to a spot under the sofa, then the hall closet and finally to the attic never to be seen again?

I think you overestimate the lasting value of your work. It will not be placed on a pedestal. There will be no altar built for it. The only place it will ever likely be displayed is on a wall at the bride’s parent’s house as a constant reminder why they can’t afford to retire until they’re 75.

Get over yourself. Accept that times change and the best use most clients will ever get out of your craft is by using it in the here and now on social media which is the reason they need digital files. And if you did a good enough job, these files make for great advertising that will lead to future business. And if you didn’t, they deserve to be lost to time anyway.

At the end of the day I have to do anything to put food on the table. The industry is changing and giving away the original files is becoming the standard now these days. If it pleases the customer, I ll give them whatever they want, as long as they pay me. If I keep sitting on my files, I would have to turn away almost 50% of my business.

Judging by the comments below I’m not the only one that takes the exact opposite view. You can still do all your finishing touches and provide final digital versions in jpegs of your images instead of the raw files. Your clients have multiple options for storing the images after they receive a usb, dvd, or download link from you. They can live forever in the cloud backed up not degrading in your provided media. Plus even protected any print you provide can also degrade based on exposure to various elements. In the end you sre selling memories and the customer is always right, you need to get with the times or go back to shooting film.

It seems in the article photographers saying about the clients “I want all digital files of all images you shoot during the session, I know you took a lot of them. I will chose the best of them myself” and ets. I think it just like potato. It’s like if you go to the restaraunt and say, would you please charge me less, and put food in plastic plate instead? Or would you please give me this potato raw,I will prepare it at home.. Instead of just go to walmart and get some raw potatoes. It just case of choise, you can go to local market and get some raw simple food, or you can go to the restourant and get a lacarte menu. (and yes, I think providing high res copy with the final print is good, but not instead of it)

“Yes, you can.” Because I have watched too many other industries desperately cling to business models that their customers no longer wanted, turning those customers bitter and resentful. Eventually making them look for alternatives. I’d rather change than become obsolete.

I can’t work for less, I still have to afford to live. But I’ll offer new services to keep up. Load most of my fee onto the work done, rather than the tangible prints… where it really should have been in the first place. Break my services apart so you can buy only what you want. And if you really want to print them yourself I’ll tell you that Costco is far better than Walmart for that. Of course if you want professional prints, I still do that too.

I got into this business, among other reasons, to make people happy. I think you’ll be happier with professional prints, I can show you a comparison, but it’s your call. Forcing you into something does not make you happy and that does not make me happy.

I have to laugh at all the heated comments here, because to me, it depends solely on the agreement I negotiate with the client, period. Either one of us can walk away if we aren’t happy with what’s being proposed. And, BTW, my agreements (performances and events are what I shoot) generally include prints and/or JPG’s – low res with an unobtrusive watermark, priced and provided with agreed-upon usage rights accordingly. No RAW files, and I never delete my selects from shoots. One point though, that seems to be missing from all this is the thing we always get told, and clients need to remember. Always back up your files.