My friend Sara wrote an interesting post the other day. Basically, she was lamenting the fact that she had a hard time finding a photographer who would provide the digital negatives when she had portraits of her two (gorgeous!) boys taken. In fact, this post is largely a paraphrasing of the comment I left on her blog.
I’m really struggling with the idea of providing digital negatives when I provide portrait services. On the one hand, I completely sympathize with the desire to have control over the negatives, digital or otherwise. When we had our wedding pix done waaaaay back in 1999, the number one thing I wanted was access to the *film* negs. (Of course the huge irony is that we never really made any prints. Sigh.)
I used to think that the main reason that photographers wanted to keep control of the negatives was to generate future sales. That may be true in some cases, but here’s the argument that’s making me lean toward offering only low-resolution digital images: control over the final product, and making sure that the prints are done properly.
First, there’s the issue of making sure the image is properly balanced in the frame. I didn’t really *get* the concept of how aspect ratios affected a print job until a couple of years ago, even though I’ve been into photography for a long time. Aspect ratios determine the shape of the box that is your print: an 8×10, for example, is cropped is differently than a 4×6 print. As a photographer, part of my “vision” includes how the image is balanced in the frame, and the crop you’d set would change quite a bit from one size of print to another. If the client brings that digital negative to the photo lab at Costco, the client may not know to compensate for the various crop sizes or might not balance the image — something that I can now do intuitively.
I’m also being won over by the idea of getting printing done by a professional print lab instead of the local photo lab. There *is* a difference in quality, something I wasn’t convinced of myself just a short while ago.
Worst case scenario, what happens if a client brings that digital negative to a local lab, and doesn’t notice that there’s a bit of a colour cast — maybe it’s subtle, but just enough to make the print less perfect than it could be?
It’s possible that the client ends up with a print that’s not what I had planned with regard to composition or colour. There’s two things wrong with that from my perspective: first, the print is less than perfect, and I want everything to be perfect for anyone who entrusts their portraits to me. Second, the client is still calling that my work when I’ve lost control of the end of the process. What if someone really mucks up the print? So when the client’s BFF comes over and sees it on the wall, she thinks, “Hmm, I thought Danielle was a professional photog, but look at that green cast and how poorly that image is balanced in the frame. I won’t be hiring her to take pictures of MY family!” An extreme case, maybe, but the argument does make sense to me.
I keep waffling on this. I’m thinking the middle road is to offer hi-res negatives but only on the images a client has already ordered for print through me.
What do you think? Would having the high-resolution files as a part of a package matter to you? Do you think a photographer is giving up the cow as well as the milk in providing high-res files? Would you be happy with just low-resolution files for online use?
Edited to add: Thank you so much for your interesting insights and opinions. You’ll see that I have now decided to offer both prints and digital negatives (and a growing line of other products) with my packages. You can see more about my packages and prices here.
