How much for CD of images

marikris · September 29, 2009

I had asked this on the People forum, but i thought I might get more answers here:

Original thread at http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=145285 with pictures.

I don't charge a sitting fee because I'm not comfortable yet with guaranteeing the delivery of great (and having enough) pictures. I had a 5 hour shoot today and the lady wants to know how much for the CD instead of prints. What rules do you go by when deciding? I know she wants the pictures for her website to update her photographs for her clients to see (she's an interior designer), but at the same time, I'm not sure if she wants to print them out (72dpi vs 300 dpi?).

I have fully edited 11 pictures on her gallery, which she has visited, but still have a lot on Lightroom. As you can see, I'm very new to this and I don't know what I should be charging. I don't want to charge too much nor too little, but I have no idea what to base it on. I'm finding that the more I learn, the less I know and I have lots more mistakes to go

Much thanks to any help you can give ~

marikris · September 29, 2009

I just realized my biggest problem is I'm doing it all backwards! I fully edit the pictures, post em online and not know which pics she even want...!

Now the "proofs" make sense...I'm going to export small jpgs from lightroom with basic batch edits and post em in the same gallery http://krisfulk.com/portraits/elizabeth and have her pick the ones she wants, and the ones she wants me to retouch/edit. And then there's still the matter of how much to charge for edits vs non-edits, high res vs low res images. I know, I'm such a noob at business

Benoit · September 30, 2009

CD Image Pricing Structure
Here is my approach to pricing electronic images
Web Site quality (72 dpi, 640 x 480):
price of a 5 x 7 print per *Edited* image
Entire Normal (1-2 hrs) Shoot "digital negatives" (100+ imgs) *minor lightroom edit, WB, etc* $250
Entire Significant Shoot (4+ hrs, 300+ imgs) "digital negatives": $500

Print Quality (300 dpi, up to 8x10 (2200 pixel wide)):
1.5 x price of 8x10 per *Edited* image
Entire Normal (1-2 hrs) Shoot "digital negatives": $750
Entire Long Shoot "digital negatives": $1000

These are ALL for NON COMMERCIAL use.

If she wants to use it on her commercial web site, I would have a much different pricing structure, but you might not want to do that.

Mox · September 30, 2009

marikris, what I've been led to understand is that you should price the digital files high enough to account for total loss of print sales. What I intend to do, is to price a print quality file at a price that I would charge for, say, a 16x20 canvas, and I will require a minimum of 3 digital files on the CD/DVD. After 5 files, they get a significant discount. That way, it is worth my while to have lost the print income, and people will only buy them if they had intended to purchase quite a lot of prints anyway, or multiple expensive prints from only a couple of files. The tipping point for me to lose the sales needs to be high enough that I'm still making enough money to live on. I wouldn't offer such a discount on digital files that it becomes too attractive to the customer. I make more money when they buy the prints from me.

Of course, I'm really new to this as well, so if some seasoned pros care to straighten me out, I'm listening.

Benoit wrote:

Here is my approach to pricing electronic images
Web Site quality (72 dpi, 640 x 480):
price of a 5 x 7 print per *Edited* image
Entire Normal (1-2 hrs) Shoot "digital negatives" (100+ imgs) *minor lightroom edit, WB, etc* $250
Entire Significant Shoot (4+ hrs, 300+ imgs) "digital negatives": $500

Print Quality (300 dpi, up to 8x10 (2200 pixel wide)):
1.5 x price of 8x10 per *Edited* image
Entire Normal (1-2 hrs) Shoot "digital negatives": $750
Entire Long Shoot "digital negatives": $1000

These are ALL for NON COMMERCIAL use.

If she wants to use it on her commercial web site, I would have a much different pricing structure, but you might not want to do that.

Would you mind giving some input on how you determine pricing for commercial use? I may have the opportunity to shoot some bellydancers at a restaurant. Some of the dancers intend to use shots to promote their businesses on their websites. The restaurant is also interested in shots.

My feeling is that the restaurant is likely to get quite a lot more site traffic, and should probably pay more, but how much more?

And ick, I just realize I've totally hijacked. Feel free to answer via pm. Sorry...

Oh, and marikris, I also REALLY think you should be charging a session fee. Don't be shy. You're worth it. Nice work.

marikris · September 30, 2009

Mox wrote:

And ick, I just realize I've totally hijacked. Feel free to answer via pm. Sorry...

Oh no no no, PLEASE don't think you're highjacking at all! I'd love to know the answer to your question as well. I'm beginning to see that commercial $$$ accounts for very different things than personal use only.

Actually, this is what I came up with after looking at two other Houston photographers in the area. They both charge $600 for 10 retouched images. Since I don't know how much retouching they do - I only know it takes me a max time of one hour to FULLY retouch an image (hoping it will get more efficient in time) - I included minor retouching for free.

Sitting Fee: $ 0 (Promotional value)
Minor retouching is provided at no charge for the best possible presentation. Artist’s discretion.

Digital Image file a la carte:
Low resolution (800 px longest side): $25 (10 or more = $20 each image discounted rate)
High resolution (resized and ready to print up to 16 x 20, where applicable):
$45. Each high res file will include a low res version. Only high res files will be accompanied by a PRINT RELEASE.
Full retouch: add $15 each image**

Digital Packages:
Easy Piecey: 10 High Resolution images (with low res version included) for $350, 3 of them fully retouched.
The Big Un: 15 High Resolution images (with low res version included) for $400, 5 of them fully retouched.

I took into account how much I'd be losing from prints, but I think I still need to adjust my 16 x 20 print price.

Benoit · October 1, 2009

Electronic Pricing

marikris wrote:

Oh no no no, PLEASE don't think you're highjacking at all! I'd love to know the answer to your question as well. I'm beginning to see that commercial $$$ accounts for very different things than personal use only.

I totally agree that you must price your electronic version to account for the loss of prints.
The first step is to know why you charge what you do.
I highly recommend the Greatest Pricing Guide to wedding Photography by Stacy Reeves.
It walks you through the process of developing a coherent price list.
Lots of work (took me about 3 days) but it allows you to justify exactly why you charge what you do.
Of course, you also must account for the local market condition.

In my case, a 5 x 7 is $25 and a 8 x 10 is $40.
By extension, a web photo is $35 and a High Res is $60.

The reason I chose 1.5 is that I'm concentrating sales on larger portraits. I'm a huge fan of Gavin Seim in that regard!

Why a max res of 8x10? Because that's as big as you'll get at your local Walgreens.

For the commercial usage:
1. Read Dan Heller on the subject.
1b. Another good resource is the "Best Business Practices for Photographers" book.
2. Know what the intended use is:
Web Site < newspaper ad < magazine ad < 10,000 glossy brochure < Billboard
3. Limit the time the license is for. 1 Year is typical. Make it easy to renew at an affordable rate (~1/3)

The key to commercial pricing is that EVERYTHING is up for negotiation and EVERYTHING affects the price.

Personally, for a basic LOCAL business website picture, I would charge $40-$60 per image per placement on the web site licensed for 1 year. 2+ year could be purchased at $20/year. Noticed that it meshes nicely with my 8x10 price

Cirque du Soleil's website...that's something else entirely...

fotoQuote is a piece of software that can take care of quoting based on use. It appears to be the industry standard, but I don't use it since I don't do much commercial.

bendruckerphoto · October 3, 2009

If you did a 5 hour shoot with no sitting fee and she wants a complete CD for commercial web use, I'd charge $750. This is why not charging a session fee is a bad idea. It now will seem like you're charging $750 for a $5 piece of plastic, not for your images but more importantly your time.

Pupator · October 7, 2009

As I'm not a pro I may be way off base here, but I cannot imagine selling non-retouched images as a normal practice. If I customer has a very specific reason and request I'd be willing to make an exception (at the right price) but I wouldn't have a standard policy of putting my work out there before it was finished.

marikris · October 7, 2009

Thank you guys for all the input! I can say that I really learned a lot from this experience. For example, I now understand why having a sitting fee and getting money upfront is very, very important. I'm still feeling out my rates, and I'm sure the next paid shoot will let me know if I'm still shafting myself.

@pupator
I totally agree! Actually, I changed that to "minor retouched." I had browsed other photographer sites where I live and saw that some offered CDs of unretouched images. I thought I could offer the same, but I realized that I could not. Here is an example of what I considered a minor retouching:

I did away with this completely after this client. From now on, I will fully retouch everything and price according to how much time I put into it.

Anyway, long story short: for the amount of time I invested here, I basically worked somewhere around $3/hour at the end

. Chalk it up to learning experience. She's a real nice lady and I really appreciated her business. But now I know I have a lot of work to do on the business end of things. Like for example, keep things simple and not give too many options (minor vs full retouching, that had to go.)

I'm sure I'll have many more questions about that later. Thank you guys once again!

How much for CD of images

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