[Mr Guy]

Not paying $500 dollars for your time doesn't make them cheapskates, it makes them unable to afford your services. Photography is a luxury item, plain and symbol. Either people will pay it, or they won't. As a professional, the only decision you have to make is whether your pricing is going to cost you more customers than the money in prints is going to make you. Hopefully you keep good records so you know exactly how much money you make comes from prints.

Personally, I'd much, much, much rather pay a set fee for time, and not pay for the CD. The few times I've had to pay for the digital image set my teeth on edge, because they were situations where I was without other options: IE Vacation spots, cruises, etc.

Prints have almost no value to me, digital images do. I'm not a professional, but as a consumer, I know that I'd personally prefer you figure out how much you need to make from each customer and make pricing options accordingly.

IE

If you need to make $500 for each customer to stay open, and you do two hour sessions, and for each of those two hour sessions you actually do four hours of post processing, as a consumer, I'd prefer the option of just paying you for 6 hours of work and you give me all the results, good or bad.

For me, the product I want to buy is your talent behind the camera, and all the images that produces. For me personally, I'm not buying 4x6 or 8x10s, I'm buying your skill in lighting and artistic vision, and it sticks in my craw to pay a premium for the format the end result comes in.