Who chooses the images to be edited?

Jman3

I usually try to feel it out per each client, but I wanted opinions from you other pros.

For portrait, engagement, bridal, etc, do you let your client choose the raw images to be edited, or do you choose them yourself? I see the benefit in letting them choose, but on the other hand, I think I know what photos have the best potential.

Glort

For any real, professional, paid work, I always choose the keepers and the throwaways. I don't shoot 1000 pics to get 100, I shoot every one to be a keeper so the only ones I have to throw away are the obvious Blinks, open mouth's or other bloopers that no one in their right mind would ever want.
I don't automatically retouch every shot that the clients see, unless there is a special request to remove a skin blemish, wrinkle etc they see what came out of the camera.

For weddings I do all the layouts of a large album before the clients come in and present that to them as a " suggestion" of what can be done with their pics. Overwhelmingly they change a few pics on a few pages, delete some of the Filler I put in ( but never all of it) and that is it.
They have no idea what can be done with layouts and effects etc so far easier I just do it for them than hit them with " try to imagine this...."


The only time I let clients choose what prints to be edited are when I do model shoots. With these there are a lot more shots where the same pic essentially is taken with changes of expression, props etc and it is a lot harder to define one better shot than another. 99% of the time this is far more gut feeling than better or best as with other work.

I give them a disk of all images straight out of the camera as part of the package and then they can get back to me with the numbers of the pics they want to use and what if any editing they require. I get very few requests for anything but removal of zits, tags or branding from clothing etc.

GerryDavid

I try to keep it simple, I will go through the images and remove the bloopers but I let the clients see the unedited pictures since it would simply take to long to go through them all and tweak each one. I make sure they know the images have not been corrected for color/exposure and have not been enhanced. I will pick a few of my favorites before hand though and go ahead and do my magic to them so they will see what I can do and those usually get selected so it wasnt a waste of time.

Some here will say you have to process every image you show the client at the picture viewing.

I use to move the pictures I thought were the good ones to a folder and show that, and each time I wouldnt get the number of selections I was hoping for, so I would show the other album and they would pick more from it than the first one. To the client having a perfectly posed shot doesn't trump a picture that shows the subjects personality. Although Ive probably gotten better over the years but it doesn't take that long to show 200 pictures in lightroom.

stirinthesauce

I choose the keepers and edit to my style. The client is aware as it is plainly stated in my contract. No hassle there. For albums, I do let them select from the finished product but I also select and do a combination of both (I include all the ones they want).