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Petr Nikl photographer, Prague |
Professional photographer Petr Nikl, lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic. He deals with advertising, art and reportage photography. Options studio: · Exterior and interior photography (mobile light park) · Processing of commercial and art photography · Reportage and wedding photography · Nude photos and portraits · Product photography to web site · Work with models · Arranged still lifes · Food styling · Professional editing and retouching photographs |
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Professional Photography: A Clients Guide to Digital Production Fees. |
| Date Added: April 30, 2010 01:38:34 PM |
| Author: Andy Nickerson |
| Category: |
| You've discovered the perfect commercial photographer to shoot your brand-new product range, you love their portfolio and are certain they can produce a set of photos that best reflect and strengthen your brand.� The estimate arrives in your inbox and all seems good except for one thing, what's this digital processing fee then? Customers often seem unwilling to pay for digital production costs.� They either don't fully understand the costs to the professional photographer in capturing and presenting digital imagery or simply believe that the 'virtual' nature of digital image files somehow deems them free or of less worth than a file that has been photographed on film, printed and then scanned. Ten years ago invoicing a client for a shoot was a simple case of costing out the price of the film shot, the 'wet' developing costs and the presentation of the eventual prints or transparencies, whether executed by the photo-lab or by myself.� Add on a few percent for the time in handling the whole procedure and the costs involved with the shoot was an easy figure to arrive at.� I infrequently got involved with scanning and retouching, that was a separate job and an extra cost for the customer which was ordinarily done by a designer or post-production agency, but on the scarce occasions I did, scanning fees would be extra to these costs also.� With the arrival of digital capture, things have changed significantly. Well I haven't even seen a roll or sheet of film, smelt the foul odor of darkroom chemistry or spent hours painfully removing flecks of dust from a transparency before scanning for around 3 years now.� To be honest I rarely miss it.� Digital photography has many distinct benefits over the traditional film capture process, most significantly in the new level of creative command the commercial photographer and customer has and also the time saved in carrying out the whole process.� But there are now many less obvious and unseen costs involved in getting to this final image file: Digital Camera Equipment.� Just to be able to capture digital files the professional photographer must now frequently invest in extremely expensive digital cameras, far more expensive than their film counterparts.� Film cameras are comparably simple mechanical devices that would last a mindful photographer for many years whereas digital cameras are full of technology that soon becomes yesterdays news so therefore need frequent upgrading.� Digital cameras also appear to break more often, let alone the regular sensor cleaning required! RAW file processing and retouching.� Professional digital capture often generates a RAW image file, a kind of negative that unlike jpeg files will require fine tuning to get the precise level of exposure, colour correction and sharpening.� These RAW files can best be equated to a traditional film based negative that demands to be lab processed, printed, scanned and finally retouched to the clients prerequisites.� But rather than dodging or burning with an enlarger the photographer must now do this key retouching work in image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop.� Last these comprehensively edited and retouched files will either be printed by a calibrated desktop printer, transmitted to the client via some sort of digital media or sent via email/ftp.� Top end computer equipment doesn't come cheap, or the image manipulation software that professional photographers must learn to efficiently use.� Such pricey items also have the unpleasant habit of devaluing very quickly too, plus comprehensive training is often necessary to enable the photographer to use skillfully. Time.� These 'unseen' jobs and skills all require the photographer to spend appreciable time in processing the perfect shot before the files are handed back to the client.� The client may well receive the completed work quicker than with traditional film based media but in many ways the work load and skill set of the photographer has actually increased.� Separate scanning and retouching costs might be a thing of the past for clients but the photographer still needs rewarding for his, now substantial, part in this digital production process. Overall Professional photographers digital processing fees just reflect the constant capitol investments in appropriate professional equipment, skills essential to do such tasks and the labour time incurred in delivering the customer with finished digitally captured, edited and presented image files. This article has been supplied courtesy of Andy Nickerson.� Andy is a Professional Photographer Northampton with over 14 years experience in working for design and advertising professionals. |
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