 BetterPhoto Member |
Negatives... To sell or Not to Sell? I am a beginning photographer, and I recently did a photo shoot for a co-worker. I made her the prints we agreed upon, and she paid the balance in full. Now she wants to know if she can buy the negatives from me. I don't have a problem selling the negatives to her because they are of her and her daughter and don't really mean anything to me. I want to know how much to sell them for, or if there are any consequences for selling them (people printing them later on with not as good quality as I would print them myself, etc.). Thank you for any input you have!
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John A. Lind |
Few professionals relinquish the negatives for at least five years for several reasons, and you've hit nearly all of them ... including one that most don't think about ... losing control of the print quality while not being able to ensure your name is no longer associated with the shoot. You can be blamed for a poor print; very, very few people know how very much the person making the print influences what it will look like. I've been asked but am very reluctant and extremely selective about doing work for co-workers, friends and relatives. On the few occasions of this I will have reprints made "at cost" for them ... but that's only for those I know very well (e.g. for co-workers it's those I've been closely associated with for many years). If you do decide to sell negatives, assess what you think someone would want to make ... for a portrait sitting perhaps one or two 8x10s, a couple 5x7s and perhaps 20 wallet size ... and then charge what you would for that. Adjust the print sizes and quantities for what you think is appropriate for the situation. They're paying you for your cost of opportunity lost. Then try not to think about them having prints done by the cheapest one-hour (fill in name here)-Mart ... it will only make you cringe.
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Ken Henry |
Every one tody is accepting CD's. I sell CD's (includes color & density corrections) and keep the film. There are different qualities of scans, most of my clients get the JPEG Presenter scans. Commercial clients get high res TIFF scans. Only one commercial client wanted film, no CD. So I made a CD for myself and charged $180.00 per image and I still have rights for my own promotional use.
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Denyse Clark |
Tabitha, I am curious as to what you decided, and how much you ended up charging if you did sell... I did a wedding for a friend in Dec 04 (I am NOT a wedding photographer!!) and they turned out pretty great... that led to a recomendation to someone else, and now I might have another wedding this summer. This person is BENT on being able to buy the negatives. While I understand that most professionals don't sell them, I'm not in that realm yet, and figure at least I'll be making some good profit this way. I will probably shoot about 400 photos, and I was thinking of charging $350 for the negatives. Am I way off base?? Anyone have comments??
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Tommy Luca |
You must understand that once you sell your Neg's you will never again see them or any profits from them don't forget that if you want to survive as a photographer/artist you can't just go around giving your work away! and just think in a year who knows how much you could of made from those same Neg's that you sold for $350 when you could have charged the customer a little less every time they wanted more prints, you could end up with a 100 times that of which you would have given it away for $350. at a one time deal, let's say you charge $25. an 8x10 print and you sold 500 (family, friends, reprints, etc.)that's $12,500 at the end of the year right? let's say you are more successful and sell double that how about a 1000 8x10 prints in one year, that's $25,000 in one year that you would have sold for a one time price of $350. Just give that some thought and if the client still wants the neg's then it's up to you to make a deal or tell it to them straight how you go about business, because no matter how much fun photography can be "and believe me it is a lot of fun ", it's still a business. Hope that helped, Tommy Luca
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Denyse Clark |
Tommy, Thanks for the comments. Although I think you are perhaps a bit optimistic with your figures, I see your point. I make a good living as an office manager currently, but I do hope to be a pro photographer by the time I'm 30 (I'm 27 now...) Good things to consider.
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Shauna Linde |
Denyse- Just wanted to comment on your recent question. Personally, I would never lose sight of any of my negatives. The person you are taking pictures for may be thinking they have an edge with you in that you are a friend of a friend and probably are giving her a great deal on the photographs so why not try and get you to give her the negatives (she probably knows that getting them is pretty rare). When I was married a couple years ago, the man who took my pictures was semi-retired (he only did shoots when he wanted to) and he happened to be a friend of my mother's. He gave me a print of every picture he took, plus the negatives and told me where to go to get the best prints made. This surprised the heck out of me but he apparently did it for every one he photographed. People who I told later about it were really shocked to find out I had the negatives-they knew it rarely happened. My photographer's thinking was that because he was getting older, and because he never really wanted to be a big time professional, he didn't want to have people constantly contacting him for more pictures. If you decide to keep the negatives, this person you are taking pictures for will probably understand. You can make her aware (in case she isn't already) that most photographer's don't give them to anyone.
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Ken Henry |
It's just as John Lind says, No one knows how to make quality prints from negatives. All of my images are available on CD's only. Hi-Res 18m Tiff or JPeg scans, fully color corrected with maybe some sharpening, contrast and a little saturation. Better than printing from film. They can go to Wal-Mart and print up to 16x24 premium quality prints without reprinting and reprinting from film until they...never get it right. Guess what? I still get reprint business. Why? The client doesn't have time to go to a lab. He has to pay for a package of some kind of photo paper and hope his cheap home printer prints a quality photo, etc, etc... All of my first prints and reprint business are now from my CD's. I just pop in the CD and print, fully corrected & enhanced and in "today's" mail (after I receive payment of course). This eliminates the time of sending your film to a lab. Reprint income?...somebody's dreaming.
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
A round figure of ten dollars a roll, 400 pictures about 12 rolls, you're at $120 to get developed. So if that $350 is all that's what you're getting, you're $230 net, which really may be high because I'm talking about getting developed and prints done. Because you'll spend more than $10 a roll, then there's tax. But it's different if you were planning on having them pay to get the rolls developed and printed. Which is something I did, but that was a sister of a friend of mine. And I said pay to get the film done, pay me $200, and everything is yours. But wouldnt've done that if we didn't like each other so much. So unless this is friend you like a lot that's involved, you are kinda way low with $350 to give her the negatives. That is if you're the one paying to get the film done.
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