What’s Your Preference?

i speak in math · #1 (**permalink**) 10-27-2008, 06:33 PM

I have a prospective client who wants a photoshoot of her and her fiance. She want prints and loves our prices. She is wondering about digital negatives. I have determined that I don't want to sell dng's but she want images for wedding favors such as slideshow and wine bottle label that I don't want to get into printing. So I have to provide a digital file in some form.

I am thinking of selling a cd of 5-10 low quality 72dpi file not really suitable for printing. What kind of price would this go for?

We could also sell high res jpegs (10mp @ 300 res) suitable for printing up to 20x30 or so individually. What kind of price would this go for?

Mr Guy · #2 (**permalink**) 10-27-2008, 07:01 PM

We've had a long discussion about this before (Thread: Are my prices too high?). There's basically several camps on this issue. It's really a matter of pricing models. When you charge for photography, you basically have three different products you can charge for. You can treat your time as a product, you can treat your pictures as the product, or you can treat prints of your pictures as the product. A lot of the professionals that post here seem to want to treat prints as their product, so they price their digital versions to discourage their purchase and use.

To me, it makes less sense to get focused on what you perceive your product to be as it does to obtain the profit margin you need to stay in business. If you need to sell a certain amount of prints to raise a certain amount of dollars, and the product they are willing to pay for isn't prints, then charge what you'd make if you HAD printed and sold them hard copies. To me, it's important to realize not everyone wants framed prints anymore.

CrashTECH · #3 (**permalink**) 10-29-2008, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i speak in math

I am thinking of selling a cd of 5-10 low quality 72dpi file not really suitable for printing. What kind of price would this go for?

If I was the customer, I wouldn't buy it, nor would I ever use you again. Secodly, if I was YOU, I wouldn't want my name attached to THOSE pictures. Especially if you depend on word-of-mouth. Your name will become synonomous with "low quality" even if you make great looking prints.

Quote:

Originally Posted by i speak in math

We could also sell high res jpegs (10mp @ 300 res) suitable for printing up to 20x30 or so individually. What kind of price would this go for?

That really depends. Does it really have to be able to print that large? Most people are going to want 8x10s (I would think). Depends how many they want and how much PP you do on them. If I was just dumping them as is, I'd probably let em go at $5 each? Maybe $10? If I cleaned them up, without anything super fancy? I really wouldn't know. It varies so much. I have heard people talking of $25 and up? I don't sell anything of my own (yet) so I haven't had to make these choices yet.

I haven't really gotten into this too much myself, but here is something I just kinda thought of. How much would you charge for 10 wallet, 3 4x6, 2 5x7, and 1 8x10 of any given picture? (Or whatever comparable "package" you have). Add up that cost, that is what you sell that image for. Let them do whatever they want with it. You "get" what you would for printing, but you don't have to print, and they get their picture. Especially if you don't get a lot of repeat print orders anyway... saves you the hassle.

Just my two cents.

private · #4 (**permalink**) 10-29-2008, 02:51 AM

[QUOTE=i speak in math;303374]

I am thinking of selling a cd of 5-10 low quality 72dpi file not really suitable for printing. What kind of price would this go for?

/QUOTE]

Work with her - if she wants them for the wine label - find out what the printer wants - 72 dpi might be all they require. If all she wants to present is a slide show at the wedding then the low resolution would be fine - its like sending an email...

As far as what to charge, I am not sure about that - you know your client. You sd that she LOVES your prices - so maybe charge her 1/2 of what you get for a 4x6...? She will do nothing but rave about you to all of her engaged friends - You can also make it part of a package so she does not get the idea that she can only get digital prints...Unless you want to open that can of worms...

zeitz.photography · #5 (**permalink**) 10-29-2008, 07:52 PM

Well the photographer that shot my wedding decided to get out of the business. So I got a call from him saying if we wanted a CD of the unedited photos (there were about 350-450 pictures) I could buy it for $250.00. His partner was still going to run the business but no longer offer weddings. I thought that $250.00 was cheep for unedited digital files.

Now if you client want 1 or two digital files let her have them for about the cost of 5 4x6 prints. Really after she has the file she can print off as many of the picture as she wants.

private · #6 (**permalink**) 10-29-2008, 07:58 PM

YOu thought $250 was a lot? Do you still? I WISH my wedding photog would have offered that.

CrashTECH · #7 (**permalink**) 10-30-2008, 08:04 PM

That is <$1.40 per shot. I would say that is pretty much worth it. Especially because if he is a photographer worth his salt, they won't need much editing anyway.