Question about Client Proofs Photos

kdog · October 8, 2014

This is a general question about how you handle customer photos. Here's what I do. When I shoot a full-day event, I'll often shoot over a thousand photos. I reduce that to a proofs gallery of several hundred photos that I give the customer from which they can select a subset of the photos they want touched-up (print ready) for delivery. My base contract includes 150 finished photos with extras available at additional cost. The customer then reviews the proofs and emails me a list of their choices. Does anybody else work like this? If so, I have a followup question. :wink

Comments and discussions on this approach are also welcome. The system works for me, but I'm not wedded to it if there's a better way.

Gaby617 · October 9, 2014

By no means am I a pro wedding photographer but I was asked by a good friend to shoot there special day. Between me and another shooter we closed a 9 hour event w/ around 1600 images. Within a week I filtered that down to 400 and I edited those as there package. The more I read the more it seems hat was more the generous considering each one was edited (some more then others).

jonh68 · October 9, 2014

I do basic edits on the proofs for exposure,WB, and cropping in batch. This is what the client sees in the proof gallery and I will spend time on the pictures they choose. I have gotten away from setting a certain number of photos they can get in a package and instead give them credit that can be applied to prints or digital files.

kdog · October 9, 2014

jonh68 wrote: »

I do basic edits on the proofs for exposure,WB, and cropping in batch. This is what the client sees in the proof gallery and I will spend time on the pictures they choose. I have gotten away from setting a certain number of photos they can get in a package and instead give them credit that can be applied to prints or digital files.

Thanks, John. I actually give them the 150 edited image files that they select. Are you saying you charge them on a per-file basis? Up to how many photos will they typically request?

Matthew Saville · October 9, 2014

My studio is probably a good example of one of the most "full-service" package options- we shoot a few thousand images for 10-12+ hour days, narrow it down to anywhere between 700-1200 keepers, and EVERY single shot gets fully color corrected to print-ready status, with clear, crisp tones and colors, plenty of B&W duplicates, and some advanced retouching here and there.

Our packages start at $4-6K, though.

And yes, we do indeed get lots of clients making their own prints, albums and other books / products on their own with our images, as well as plenty of in-house album orders for clients who do want that complete service...

=Matt=

kdog · October 9, 2014

Thanks guys.

So here's my real question. How do you go from a customer-supplied list of files to actually selecting them in Lightroom? With a large list, it's slow and error-prone to go through the list by hand. I've been scouring the internet but surprisingly I don't see a better way to do this.

A friend and I actually developed a script to parse a list of image names and set the rating level for them in the LR XMP files. You then use the Synchronize Folder function in Lightroom to read the changes in the XMP files, overwriting the catalog settings. Voila! The files are selected -- with one slight problem. It's unreliable. I've noticed a few times that it's missed a file or two. Then you have to figure out which file is missing which is almost as much work as selecting all the files in the first place. No clue how to make it more reliable as it must be some sort of Adobe bug. Not to mention, reaching under the covers like this to toggle Adobe data is probably sketchy at best anyway.

Anybody got a better way?

jonh68 · October 9, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Thanks, John. I actually give them the 150 edited image files that they select. Are you saying you charge them on a per-file basis? Up to how many photos will they typically request?

It depends. I have digital packages as well as print packages that the customer can apply the credit to. They can also buy individual files and prints.

This way if the customer only wants digital then they just apply the credit to digital files. I then edit the ones they are actually going to use, or at least are the ones they like best.

In regards to how many the client select, my target is beach weddings which are not all day affairs, more like 1 hr, and sometimes includes a reception. I do have some weddings booked for next year that will be all day affairs so I will see how this goes.

Doing it this way I am in a way giving a certain amount of digitsl files if the buy a package. This also give me the abilty to make a few sales from the family, and keeps the bride and groom from being in the middle of taking requests for pictures. If the couple doesn't want to deal with family that way, the can just give them the gallery and they order from there.

kdog · October 9, 2014

Thanks, John. So do you ever deal with the "large list of files" problem I described above?

jonh68 · October 9, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Thanks, John. So do you ever deal with the "large list of files" problem I described above?

I don't. My workflow is to put the keepers in a file, name them, do basic edits, and then upload to the proof gallery. Customer tells me their favorites and I edit. When the customer tells me the pic number, it corresponds to the numbering on the computer.

PhotoMechanic is what I use to manage files so I don't have libraries to worry about. I use PM to see the files on the card before they are downloaded to the computer.

With that said, I rarely offer a client over 200 photos to look at. I don't go after clients that would want over that many.

If customer decides to order through the website, I have to proof it which then gives the opportunity to also see their favorites and replace the files with the edited ones.

kdog · October 9, 2014

jonh68 wrote: »

Customer tells me their favorites and I edit.

This is the problem I'm speaking of. When the list is large, say 50, 100, or more photos, I'd really like an automated way of flagging those photos in my LR catalog so I can just start editing without messing around finding all the files and tagging them by hand.

zoomer · October 13, 2014

I like to look at them once edit and be done and on to the next thing....could not imagine how complicated it would be to have a bunch of file picking efforts going back and forth and trying to keep track of them all at various stages.
I tag all my favorites....open each one in Lightroom edit it....go to the next one. When complete I load them on a disc and deliver them. Next...

I have never understood how a customer can "proof" photos that have not been processed....surely the finished edit will look different. Lots of photos that look like crap as proofs can look amazing after being processed....and photos they liked the look of not processed may not look as good to them after they are processed.

As to your specific problem...have the customer provide the file names. Load just those files into a Keepers gallery...load the Keepers gallery into Lightroom then process them. If you are only doing 150 photos that should take next to no time at all.

kdog · October 13, 2014

While I appreciate your effort to help, Zoomer, you've managed to misconstrue my workflow and question considerably. This is probably my fault, as I left out a lot of specifics for brevity. I will try to clarify.

zoomer wrote: »

I like to look at them once edit and be done and on to the next thing....could not imagine how complicated it would be to have a bunch of file picking efforts going back and forth and trying to keep track of them all at various stages.

There are exactly two stages to keep track of. A list of proofs, and a list of the customer choices. It's really not that complicated and hardly a "bunch of back and forth". A workflow with no proofs and no customer choices as you seem to have is certainly simpler than mine. But I don't think the strategy of supplying proofs and taking orders for pictures is abnormal in the industry either. After all, that's what proofs are for, are they not?

I tag all my favorites....open each one in Lightroom edit it....go to the next one. When complete I load them on a disc and deliver them. Next...

I actually do that too. I do a first-round of processing on everything the customer sees. When I get their list, I make a second pass over those to make absolutely sure they're the best they can be. John68 does something similar with his strategy of proofing delay, so that he can go back and doublecheck his processing on the pictures that customers order.

Another reason for the list of choices is that most of my clients order books. The number of proofs I supply far exceed the number of photos that go into my books, which average 150. At receptions, I'll shoot all the guests without knowing who they all are. Customers will want some of them in the book, and other they may not. Often I do multiple poses of the same group: one fun and one conventional. The customer gets to choose which one to put in the book, maybe even both versions.

I have never understood how a customer can "proof" photos that have not been processed....surely the finished edit will look different. Lots of photos that look like crap as proofs can look amazing after being processed....and photos they liked the look of not processed may not look as good to them after they are processed.

I don't do that. All of my proofs receive a first-round of basic edits and they all look great.
Even if I adopted your strategy of delivering only what I felt like delivering, I'd still need a list of the photos from them to put in their photo book.

As to your specific problem...have the customer provide the file names. Load just those files into a Keepers gallery...load the Keepers gallery into Lightroom then process them. If you are only doing 150 photos that should take next to no time at all.

You didn't understand the question. Here's what I asked:

"When the list is large, say 50, 100, or more photos, I'd really like an automated way of flagging those photos in my LR catalog so I can just start editing without messing around finding all the files and tagging them by hand."

In other words, I don't like manually reading a list of photos from my customer and hunting them down in my LR catalog. That step is error prone and time consuming, so I wish to automate it. I've looked for a commercial solution to that problem in vain. Instead, I actually developed a script which reads a lit of filenames and flags them in LR. It works pretty well, but is a bit of kludge and a little buggy. It occurred to me that other folks who deal with proofs surely have the same problem, so I would find out what they do. Since nobody seems to understand the question or doesn't care, I guess I'm just a little strange. I guess I'll try to get my script working better and stick with that, maybe even turn it into a plugin in the off chance that someone else might benefit from it some day.

jonh68 · October 13, 2014

kdog wrote: »

In other words, I don't like manually reading a list of photos from my customer and hunting them down in my LR catalog. That step is error prone and time consuming, so I wish to automate it. I've looked for a commercial solution to that problem in vain. Instead, I actually developed a script which reads a lit of filenames and flags them in LR. It works pretty well, but is a bit of kludge and a little buggy. It occurred to me that other folks who deal with proofs surely have the same problem, so I would find out what they do. Since nobody seems to understand the question or doesn't care, I guess I'm just a little strange. I guess I'll try to get my script working better and stick with that, maybe even turn it into a plugin in the off chance that someone else might benefit from it some day.

I would like to find a solution to that. However, I have found a less painful way of doing things, maybe you are doing this already but it saves on hunting files at least.

I number the files by client/date/000 so it looks like "smith 101314 001". I just select rename in a series and start at "001" in the sequence. I upload to the gallery and select order pictures by name. When the client sees the gallery they are in the number as on my computer. I ask the client to give me the pic numbers and then just tag them.

Another alternative is clients can make a favorite list, and I will get a notification. I can then just download the favorites back to my computer into a favorite client file and edit. A little redundant to download pics back to the computer where they already are but if you go to a separate favorite file at least you know you are not missing any of the favorites.

troopers · October 13, 2014

kdog wrote: »

This is a general question about how you handle customer photos. Here's what I do. When I shoot a full-day event, I'll often shoot over a thousand photos. I reduce that to a proofs gallery of several hundred photos that I give the customer from which they can select a subset of the photos they want touched-up (print ready) for delivery. My base contract includes 150 finished photos with extras available at additional cost. The customer then reviews the proofs and emails me a list of their choices. Does anybody else work like this? If so, I have a followup question.

Comments and discussions on this approach are also welcome. The system works for me, but I'm not wedded to it if there's a better way.

Clients only see/receive edited digital photos. No proofing here.

kdog · October 13, 2014

troopers wrote: »

Clients only see/receive edited digital photos. No proofing here.

How many shots do you average during a typical 12 hour event?
How many do you typically deliver?
Do you make Albums? How many photos do you put in them. Who decides which ones to use? Will you take another editing pass on them?

troopers · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

How many shots do you average during a typical 12 hour event?
How many do you typically deliver?
Do you make Albums? How many photos do you put in them. Who decides which ones to use? Will you take another editing pass on them?

For a 12 hr wedding, ~3000 shots are taken (incls a second photog). Of those ~3000 shots, ~500 photos are delivered (no min/max specified...sufficient number of photos to tell the wedding story). Typically, no album...client get JPGs via website and on a USB thumb drive. They can print at a vendor of their choice. Albums are optional and extra.

Side note...when I was on the other side of the camera, I never thought it was "fair" to have to pay for a photographer to take photos, and then to pay an additional (outrageous) fee to receive said photos.

kdog · October 14, 2014

troopers wrote: »

For a 12 hr wedding, ~3000 shots are taken (incls a second photog). Of those ~3000 shots, ~500 photos are delivered (no min/max specified...sufficient number of photos to tell the wedding story). Typically, no album...client get JPGs via website and on a USB thumb drive. They can print at a vendor of their choice. Albums are optional and extra.

Side note...when I was on the other side of the camera, I never thought it was "fair" to have to pay for a photographer to take photos, and then to pay an additional (outrageous) fee to receive said photos.

Thanks for the clarifications. If you were to make an album, the customer would hand you a list of photos they want in the album, and then you'd have the situation which I am discussing in this thread -- namely dealing with lists of photos.

I encourage all my customers to purchase the book, and most of them do. That's a big part of what I do. Third-party album makers are horrendously expensive and I'll bet most clients who only buy digital images never get an album and rarely if ever look at their pictures again. That to me is a crime. Memories like this need to be in print to be real. And that requires extra care in processing that I reserve only for the images that I know are destined for print. That's the reason I do the proofs thing.

BTW, I'm not sure where you got the "outrageous fee" thing. I'm currently one of the cheapest guys in town in my niche. I'm also one of the newer guys, so that will change over time.

kdog · October 14, 2014

jonh68 wrote: »

Another alternative is clients can make a favorite list, and I will get a notification. I can then just download the favorites back to my computer into a favorite client file and edit. A little redundant to download pics back to the computer where they already are but if you go to a separate favorite file at least you know you are not missing any of the favorites.

John, can you elaborate on this? It sounds like something that would work for me. How/where does the customer make this list, and what notifies you? What software are you using, and is this in conjunction with a web site where your clients can choose photos? Thanks.

troopers · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Thanks for the clarifications. If you were to make an album, the customer would hand you a list of photos they want in the album, and you'd have the situation which I am discussing in this thread -- namely dealing with lists of photos.

I encourage all my customers to purchase the book, and most of them do. That's a big part of what I do. Third-party album makers are horrendously expensive and I'll bet most clients who only buy digital images never get an album and rarely if ever look at their pictures again. That to me is a crime. Memories like this need to be in print to be real. And that requires extra care in processing that I reserve only for the images that I know are destined for print. That's the reason I do the proofs thing.

BTW, I'm not sure where you got the "outrageous fee" thing. I'm one of the cheapest guys in town in my niche.

I suppose but it's not that big of issue for me.

You'll dealing with two lists of photos...one list of 150 photos to edit from the proofing gallery containing hundreds of photos and a second list selected from the 150 edited photos. Right? I don't have that first list from the proofing gallery. The list of photos for the albums is fairly nominal.

I certainly agree that photos are certainly appreciated more when viewed in print. And I suggest going that route, but it's the clients call and almost all decide to self-print (at a vendor of their choice). I don't care if they print through me or not...most importantly is that prints are made (I do inform that the photos are calibrated for Bay Photo via my site and photos will appear different if printed elsewhere). With the mass availability and high quality of online print finishing labs, photo quality via other vendors is 'good enough' for more than half of my clients...a 4"x6" is ~$0.70 through my site (Bay Photo), and most choose Costco, Shutterfly and the like.

Btw, IMHO, all the photos that a photog delivers should be print quality...not sure why you only include 150 of the hundred to print quality and charge additional for > 150 photos.

My comment about outrageous fee for prints was not directed towards to you. My apologies if it came across that way.

jonh68 · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

John, can you elaborate on this? It sounds like something that would work for me. How/where does the customer make this list, and what notifies you? What software are you using, and is this in conjunction with a web site where your clients can choose photos? Thanks.

I'm using Zenfolio and its a built in feature. Client creates an account and makes a favorite list. They click share to photographer and I get an email notification. I log in and see their list. If it's a short list like 4-10 I'll just tag them myself. If it's a big number I'll just download the favorites into a subfolder and edit. I'll either mail a cd or make a separate edited gallery for the customer to download. If they pay upfront for digital files I will usually set print prices at cost so they can have a access to a pro lab.

zoomer · October 14, 2014

I don't think you read my solution to your specific issue closely....simple and it works. I do understand your dilemma.

kdog · October 14, 2014

troopers wrote: »

I suppose but it's not that big of issue for me.

You'll dealing with two lists of photos...one list of 150 photos to edit from the proofing gallery containing hundreds of photos and a second list selected from the 150 edited photos. Right? I don't have that first list from the proofing gallery. The list of photos for the albums is fairly nominal.

No I actually put all 150 (nominal) in the book. So far I've only had one customer who asked me to hold off on two pictures that they were going to give to cousins. However, I could see the two-list thing happening in the future, and I'd be fine with it, especially if I can streamline the process which I'm trying to do.

I certainly agree that photos are certainly appreciated more when viewed in print. And I suggest going that route, but it's the clients call and almost all decide to self-print (at a vendor of their choice). I don't care if they print through me or not...most importantly is that prints are made (I do inform that the photos are calibrated for Bay Photo via my site and photos will appear different if printed elsewhere). With the mass availability and high quality of online print finishing labs, photo quality via other vendors is 'good enough' for more than half of my clients...a 4"x6" is ~$0.70 through my site (Bay Photo), and most choose Costco, Shutterfly and the like.

Interesting. I wonder how many of them actually follow-through and build those albums.

Btw, IMHO, all the photos that a photog delivers should be print quality...not sure why you only include 150 of the hundred to print quality and charge additional for > 150 photos.

Actually that's a simplified version of what one of my competitors does. He charges a rate for the event, and then charges a hefty rate for each 100 photos. He's nationally known and a big deal in the industry. Most of the photographers you see on Creative Live (Sue Bryce comes to mind) will tell you to charge for *everything*. Every picture, every DVD, touchups, etc. Every photographer has their own pricing scheme and I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. Some will resonate with certain customers more than others.

That being said, I'm not totally happy with my current scheme either and definitely considering other schemes, so I appreciate hearing yours.

My comment about outrageous fee for prints was not directed towards to you. My apologies if it came across that way.

No worries, I wasn't offended. I just thought it was ironic given how low my charges are compared to others.

kdog · October 14, 2014

jonh68 wrote: »

I'm using Zenfolio and its a built in feature. Client creates an account and makes a favorite list. They click share to photographer and I get an email notification. I log in and see their list. If it's a short list like 4-10 I'll just tag them myself. If it's a big number I'll just download the favorites into a subfolder and edit. I'll either mail a cd or make a separate edited gallery for the customer to download. If they pay upfront for digital files I will usually set print prices at cost so they can have a access to a pro lab.

Oh, Zenfolio. I've heard of that feature and I wish Smugmug had that. Do you store your raw images in Zenfolio? Otherwise I'm not sure what it means to download the favorites. Seems you'd still need to match them up with the raws. I'd be happy to get a gallery of images back from my customer instead of a list, because I could then simply list out the images and derive my list that way.

BTW, I knew about the Zenfolio feature because during my search for solutions, I found that someone wrote a LR plugin that interfaces with Zenfolio to get your favorites list back into a LR grouping of some sort. That might be something you could use if you use LR.

Thanks for the additional info.

kdog · October 14, 2014

zoomer wrote: »

I don't think you read my solution to your specific issue closely....simple and it works. I do understand your dilemma.

This is what I read:

zoomer wrote: »

As to your specific problem...have the customer provide the file names. Load just those files into a Keepers gallery...load the Keepers gallery into Lightroom then process them. If you are only doing 150 photos that should take next to no time at all.

I wasn't sure what you meant by a "keepers gallery", but I assumed it was any method that produces a grouping in LR. That could be a subfolder, a LR collection, using the flag bit, setting the color or a rating on them, etc. You still have to go through the list by hand and somehow group them in LR using one of the methods I listed. That's what I do now, I'm just looking for a better way. Or maybe I don't understand your suggestion.

troopers · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Actually that's a simplified version of what one of my competitors does. He charges a rate for the event, and then charges a hefty rate for each 100 photos. He's nationally known and a big deal in the industry. Most of the photographers you see on Creative Live (Sue Bryce comes to mind) will tell you to charge for *everything*. Every picture, every DVD, touchups, etc. Every photographer has their own pricing scheme and I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. Some will resonate with certain customers more than others.

I don't disagree with you that every photog's business model will be a tad different, and each model is not wrong or wrong, just different.

I base my model on what I want when hiring a photographer...that's the best advice I can give you.

I think photogs charging for everything will generally disappear. There will be the top ~5% wedding photog that will be able to continue to do so because of their name/brand but the majority won't. There's really no valid/legitmate reason for photogs to charge those "outrageous fees" nowadays (whereas years ago with film, those "outrageous fees" where somewhat justifiable)....I think photogs continue to charge because that's what was historically done.

Here's an interested story...a few years ago, I took my car to the dealer to be serviced. When chatting with the service advisor, I noticed that she had a wedding photo on her desk which I casually asked her about/congratulated her (I kept silent about the fact that I was a wedding photog). She was a newlywed, and very pissed off and irritated that her wedding photographer charged a ton for almost everything. Her fault was that she didn't realize (not sure why) that costs prints/albums was about half of what she paid the photog to take the photos. She felt the photographer was more like a car salesman than her sales colleagues...she acknowledged that dealers charge more for service but at least car owners have a choice where to take their car for service. Although she loved the photog's work, she said that she wouldn't recommend her.

troopers · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Oh, Zenfolio. I've heard of that feature and I wish Smugmug had that.

Smugmug had a similar feature called events I think, but it went away not too long ago.

kdog · October 14, 2014

troopers wrote: »

She was a newlywed, and very pissed off and irritated that her wedding photographer charged a ton for almost everything. Her fault was that she didn't realize (not sure why) that costs prints/albums was about half of what she paid the photog to take the photos.

It's a shame the client was left with a bad taste in her mouth. It sounds like the photographer may not have done a good job of explaining the costs in advance. There should be no surprises.

I do agree that the digital age calls for different ways of doing business. Still, I don't think it's realistic to have a one-size-fits-all offering that's fair to all clients. You're still going to want tiers of service based on some metrics. You might have pre-prepackaged plans, ala carte service or whatever. At the end of the day, the customers will decide what they like best.

Gary752 · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Thanks guys.

So here's my real question. How do you go from a customer-supplied list of files to actually selecting them in Lightroom? With a large list, it's slow and error-prone to go through the list by hand. I've been scouring the internet but surprisingly I don't see a better way to do this.

A friend and I actually developed a script to parse a list of image names and set the rating level for them in the LR XMP files. You then use the Synchronize Folder function in Lightroom to read the changes in the XMP files, overwriting the catalog settings. Voila! The files are selected -- with one slight problem. It's unreliable. I've noticed a few times that it's missed a file or two. Then you have to figure out which file is missing which is almost as much work as selecting all the files in the first place. No clue how to make it more reliable as it must be some sort of Adobe bug. Not to mention, reaching under the covers like this to toggle Adobe data is probably sketchy at best anyway.

Anybody got a better way?

I think what would work for you is a "Smart Collection". Go through the photos and give the ones you want to edit for the proofs 2 stars. Then when the customer gives you a list, give those a reg flag. Then out of those give the ones you want to go in the album a Green flag. Then set up a smart collection for that customer, with a folder for proofs, Customer selects, and one for album. For the proofs folder set up a filter for the customer name, and 2 stars. For the Customer Selects do basically the same but with a red flag, and for the Album folder do the same thing but with a green flag. With this method, as you tag or flag each photo, they should automatically show up in the proper folder in the smart collection. That is how I think it is supposed to work.

GaryB

kdog · October 14, 2014

Gary752 wrote: »

Then when the customer gives you a list, give those a reg flag.

That's the step I'm trying to eliminate, Gary. I don't want to go through a customer list by hand because that's time consuming and error prone. I want an automated tool to read the list and flag the photos in LR for me. The rest is easy.

jonh68 · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

Oh, Zenfolio. I've heard of that feature and I wish Smugmug had that. Do you store your raw images in Zenfolio? Otherwise I'm not sure what it means to download the favorites. Seems you'd still need to match them up with the raws. I'd be happy to get a gallery of images back from my customer instead of a list, because I could then simply list out the images and derive my list that way.

BTW, I knew about the Zenfolio feature because during my search for solutions, I found that someone wrote a LR plugin that interfaces with Zenfolio to get your favorites list back into a LR grouping of some sort. That might be something you could use if you use LR.

Thanks for the additional info.

I use DXO for batch processing and then upload those images to the proof gallery. These are pretty close to what I want, some will require tweaking. I am usually happy wih the converted jpgs and will just edit these files. I have to covert to jpg anyway, DXO lets me get pretty close to what I want. I do fun work with models and they tell me my proofs sometimes look better than edited pictures they get from other photographers. If I need more extensive editing I still have the raw files to work off of.

jonh68 · October 14, 2014

kdog wrote: »

It's a shame the client was left with a bad taste in her mouth. It sounds like the photographer may not have done a good job of explaining the costs in advance. There should be no surprises.

I do agree that the digital age calls for different ways of doing business. Still, I don't think it's realistic to have a one-size-fits-all offering that's fair to all clients. You're still going to want tiers of service based on some metrics. You might have pre-prepackaged plans, ala carte service or whatever. At the end of the day, the customers will decide what they like best.

I agree with this approach. I hate editing, and I am not going to get 200-500 pictures print ready unless the customer demands that, and pays for it.

My main income comes from destination family vacation photos. I have levels where if a family wants just one great group picture they can hire me and get just one picture. I spend my time editing one picture and I am done.

Some families want a group picture, then individual shots of kids, and candid shots. They can buy the appropriate package or level of service and I edit what they WANT.

I have also had families want me to cover a reunion and they want all the pics from the gallery. I tell them upfront to tell me their 30 or so favorite pictures, I will edit those extensively and then give them the other pics with just the basic edits.

Even when I cover an all day event I like to cull it down to 200-300 pics. I think most customers are overwhelmed with more than that and the pics just start looking the same. When I talk to the client I explain this to them. If they want to see more then I will of course do that. I want clients who want quality over quantity.