UKC

How do people feel about selling the digital versions of their photos? I've sold prints before but this is the first time anyone has asked for me a this. (It would be a JPEG, not the original RAW file.)

I've no reason to believe that the person concerned intends to use the file for anything other than personal use. But still. Not sure about this.

Anyone offer any advice?

In reply to Douglas Griffin:
Depends on the license you sell them. I define purpose - personal use, no prints, digital only, cannot upload to the web or pass on etc.

If it's for commercial use, then type of use, location and geography, number of and types of media it'll be reproduced in, duration of use etc.

Be specific and hold your ground. And good luck!

In reply to london_huddy:

Thanks for that, Andrew! - it would be purely for personal use, for the individual to print. (He's in the USA.) I guess I could specify that it's to be printed just the once!

In reply to Douglas Griffin:


When we got married( 1980) the photographer went to great lengths to ensue we only had proofs.
When my daughter married a couple of years back the photographer was happy to give us all the photos in jpg AND raw, as long as we bought a certain package from him, which was not unreasonable . Not sure if this is the norm .

He must reasoned that were unlikely to exploit his photos for financial gain, but I guess, you need to be sure that people buying your image know they should not be making money from your photo ( only you should do this)

In reply to Jim C:

Aye Jim, as I say, no reason to suspect that it's anything other than for personal use, for sentimental reasons (it's a photo of a mountain that the person has climbed).

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

No worries.

In that case, I'd take the fee for a print and then send it to a US printers myself, something like Snapfish or Shutterfly (equivalent to Photobox), getting it delivered to him.

I don't like handing out high res digital images!

AH

In reply to london_huddy:

That's a very good idea - I may well suggest that.


It does go against the grain a bit!

In reply to Douglas Griffin:



Interesting you say that. I only take photos as an amateur but have bought them from photographers at e.g. certain events of at our wedding.

I consider this this way: The photographer does his job once taking the picture. He then tries charging for each print which possibly even deteriorates over time. I am happy to pay a few pounds more for a high-res digital image than for a print but that's the end of it. If a photographer does not offer this, I am not interested in the photo. I have seen this option offered almost always in the past at sports events and do find it fair for personal use. Commercial use is a different story.

Hope this help seeing the issue from a customer's side.
Mike

In reply to miho:

Good to get a different perspective on this.

However, I don't see anything even slightly wrong with a photographer selling more than one print of a photo. The photographer "does his/her job once" taking the picture - in the same way that a musician does his/her job once recording a song; no-one seriously expects them to sell it only once?!

As for whether the print may deteriorate over time, anything anyone buys from me will be printed on something like this:
http://www.hahnemuehle.com/en/digital-fineart/longevity.html
so longevity should not be an issue if the prints are properly cared for by the customer.

In reply to miho:

Mike - good point but quite different circumstances once you think about it a bit.

If you'll indulge me (and Douglas will forgive the hijack):

For events, I'll very often sell personal use rights to the client. Most of my wedding clients get high res jpgs of their day (some still just want prints and books which is fine) and at sports events, I'll sell the same license, personal use, no publication etc.

The image in these circumstances is of principal value only to the client who commissioned them, not a wider audience so I'm not worried about them passing it on. I don't ever sell copyright though, I just sell a license to use the image.

For 'art' images (e.g. landscapes etc) it's a different game. Because the image is of potential value to other people as well, I'm reluctant to throw away potential revenue by enabling people to share such photos without my being rewarded in some way for the effort and investment I've put in to create it.

Always good to hear the customer view, but this one (often unspoken but not uncommon) professional view.

In reply to london_huddy:

Some very good points there.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I got some pretty robust abuse last summer for my "shoot and burn" or "shoot and share" business model - a lot of photographers still don't want to share digital files. If I was at the very top of my game (wedding and events), I'd maybe feel the same but for the market I operate in (base >£1800 daily fees), most clients expect to get digital copies because that's what everyone offers: it's a free market and highly competitive.

Anyway - Good luck with your international sale!

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I've just given away a photo to someone on here who asked for a shot of Stanage to print and put up on his wall and just asked him to make a donation to Mountain Rescue.
I am sure if he wanted the same sort of print off Alamy (which i am a member of)or or Shutterstock then he'd be paying a hefty amount for a high res picture. My camera equipment cost me thousands and I could have asked for cash but i thought a donation to the guys who put their time,effort, and sometimes lives on the line was both of us giving something for a good cause. I didn't stipulate a fee for him to donate, i left that to him to decide.
A similar scenario to the guy asking for the print off you.

Chris

In reply to Douglas Griffin:


That's a good idea having it printed over there. You could also drop in a nice photoshopped signature, or the URL to encourage more traffic?

In reply to london_huddy:

Thanks.

In reply to chris fox:

Thanks for that, Chris. More food for thought. I've previously given away digital versions of photos (some of them among my favourite ones) for what I felt was a good cause (e.g. a book about the history of the Clan MacKenzie! All I asked in return was an attribution and my website details.). Again, this is a bit different.

In reply to dek:

I could - but that goes against the grain a bit, too. I have a real aversion to seeing photos with signatures or URLs on them!

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Met a painter/artist in the camera repair shop a few weeks ago. He said he'd just sold his iPhone "snaps" of a derelict funfair he'd come across, to a fancy restaurant in edinburry.
So far they've taken ten 10x10 prints, at £120 each?!

In reply to dek:

Nice! I got an iPhone a year ago (4S). The camera on it is great - there's an App (645PRO) that allows you to capture RAW images. I know of a few photographers who have printed and hung images from theirs.

This article needs a subscription but it's basically Joe Cornish singing the praises of the camera on the Nokia 1020.
https://www.onlandscape.co.uk/2014/03/happen/

I tend to use my phone for 'sketches' - if it looks OK on the phone, it's time to get the big camera out of the bag!

In reply to Douglas Griffin:
Yep, but it was an iPhone same as mine, a '3' !
I'm in the queue, for a shot of a canon 5D Mk3 soon, looks brilliant, but a bit biggish. I'm quite smitten with a pals new Fuji X1 thingy...waiting for a shot of that too!

In reply to dek:

The new Sony A-7 is getting rave reviews too.

I'll be sticking with the Canon 5D Mark II for a while yet I think. I figure that if I can't take decent photos with that camera, the problem is with me rather than whatever kit I'm using!

In reply to london_huddy:

Am I correct in understanding your basic daily rate for photography is greater than £1800 ?

Including weddings and the PR work on your website ( I was a surprised not to see major campaigns) ?

Sounds like your doing very very well if thats the case - as you say you've a dream apartment and could work / live in an world city.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

For selling/giving to private individuals, then for me it really depends on the image.

If it is one of your top images, then if it was me, then the answer would be a simple no.

There will always be a work around for a print and I've shipped big prints to the States quite a few times.

I figure, if the purchaser thinks that is unreasonable, too much hassle or inconvenient, then they don't really want the image that much!


If it's just an average image or snapshot, I'd just send the digital image (jpg!) to them foc and enjoy the giving.

In reply to london_huddy:

Hi Andy,
I think we are pretty much in agreement here. The pictures I wrote about are ones of personal value where there is little chance of someone passing them on for commercial purposes. If it is an image that might be of interest for a wider audience, I'd understand if you at least limited the license to personal use. Of course that leaves you exposed to misuse. It's a matter of balancing risk and reward I suppose and that balance might vary from individual to individual.

Mike

In reply to ChrisJD:

Thanks, Chris, and to everyone for their input.

Have suggested that I arrange printing and delivery via Snapfish.

In reply to london_huddy:

Managed to sell by uploading to a US site, who then print and deliver to the customer, as you suggested.

(It was this image, incidentally - an old(ish) one on my Flickr stream:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/douglas_griffin/5336294284/ )

Thanks again for everyone's help.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Hello Douglas interesting that you should bring this subject up. I sell my digital media through CrowdMedia.co the guy is Mart Roldan who set up last year. You get paid via paypal.

They have used several images of mine including a shot I captured of a rescue in the Pass.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:
I wouldn't worry about it too much, if the buyer seems credible. Professional photography for publication requires that photographer hands over digital versions of the files - it's unavoidable. Photographers selling images through photo libraries will hopefully sell digital versions of their files multiple times to multiple buyers.

As others have said, get a written license agreement specifying restrictions on how the file is to be used.

FWIW, you may wish to reconsider posting unwatermarked images to your flickr account. They are at a perfectly stealable resolution for web use. A simple watermark or copyright symbol plus your name is likely to discourage most casual appropriation.

In reply to eduardo:


I'm not especially bothered about someone making unauthorised use of a low-res version of one of my photos. I'd rather they didn't, but I'd rather take the risk of that than put watermarks on them. I think watermarks are a distraction and spoil the sort of images that I'm trying to create.