Apr
Do You Give Away Your Images?
Posted by
One of the topics that has popped up on my radar repeatedly this week is the question of whether to give away your images or not. I know many studios find themselves in quite a predicament over this and I wanted to share with you my thoughts. And I’m hoping via comment here, you will share some of yours!
Deciding to give your images to your client on CD needs to be done only when you have, from a financial standpoint, received all compensation you deserve for the shooting. Before you hand over your images you have to be okay with the fact that from that point forward, there’s a very good chance you will no longer make any money on that job. My suggestion is that you only offer to sell the image files as an incentive to a minimum purchase requirement or as part of a package. This way you have some control over the fact that you have already met your minimum sales requirement to maintain profitability.
My next concern is also my largest – your reputation. When your client takes the CD of their images to walmart, costco or even their local mom & pop print lab, those images (however poorly manipulated or printed) will be what is displayed and shown off to friends and family as YOUR artwork.
Case in point: I did a fabulous shoot for some close friends of the family a couple years back and told them when they were ready to order images to give me a call and I would print for them at cost. Not wanting to bother me, they took the CD of unretouched, un color corrected images to KINKOS (for crying out loud!) and brought home a HUGE 30×40 “sepia” canvas print. I can’t even begin to explain to you how mortified I was when I showed up at their house a year later and saw at the top of the stairs a pixelated, bright orange, unretouched image they had been telling everyone I shot for them. Grrr…. It’s your reputation on the line. When you give away your images, you release the control and have to be okay with knowing your images may end up bright orange at the top of someone’s stairs.
What are your thoughts on keeping or giving away your images? How is your business currently structured to handle requests for images on CD?
Don’t forget to check out our post from a few days ago about the My Funky Camera strap giveaway! Only 2 more days to enter!
All The Best,
Katie
P.S. Thanks to Scott Shoemake for the image on this blog post – it’s his entry in our giveaway contest. Where’s yours? 
- Bookmark :
- Digg
- del.icio.us
- Stumbleupon
- Redit it
2 Responses to “Do You Give Away Your Images?”
Geez! What a nightmare!
My policy, that I stand very true too is:
Weddings: They will get their Hi-Resolution DVD’s on their two year anniversary or when their Wedding Album is delivered which ever falls first. They may purchase the DVD’s before this time for $5,000. I explain that these DVD’s are only for archival purposes only and not for printing. I also explain to my clients before the event everything that you blogged about… you need to have the image hand re-touched by our studio, we take pride in each image ordered, your Grandchildren will someday look at these images..and so on.. i also make my clients feel special telling them that our clients trust us to handle everything for them and there is no need for them to have to worry about making their own prints, they already have too many other tings to do
. I explain that “shoot-and-burn Photographers are not the kind of photographers you want taking your precious wedding photographs as they are not to be trusted and only out for a quick buck 
I find the more trust you have with your couples the less they bug you about the hi-rez images. oh, another thing… i show my couples before and after (re-touched) images, once they see the slide-show they will never try to print their own prints!
Portraits: They NEVER get a Hi-Resolution DVD.