Photo Marketers - I Hate Photoshop!

"I HATE Photoshop!" Is the title of a blog post I ran across today on the web. What it could've said is "How my photographer is ripping me off -- without me even knowing it!"

The fact that she hates Photoshop was an interesting title so I decided to read the article.

As it happens, the article was written by a bride who hired a photographer for her wedding. In her words he was there for four or five hours.

After the wedding, as was previously arranged, she was given all the negatives. By the way, a film photographer giving away the negatives is the same as a digital photographer giving a memory stick, or a CD file of all the photographs. Her feeling is that photographers who shoot weddings and do not give away the negatives are simply ripping off their clients.

So, she got all the photographer's negatives.

She didn't have any editing software, so she stored away the negatives for quite awhile. She didn't say exactly how long. Finally, she got a copy of Photoshop for Christmas. She was now "retouching" over 500 black-and-white images. (Apparently the photographer shot half in black and white and half in color.)

Her reason for hating Photoshop, was simply because of the boredom involved in retouching 500 photos. Golly... I have to wonder just how good her photographer was if she had to retouch all 500 of them! At any rate, since the software was a gift at least she didn't hate it because of its $600+ price tag! Apparently the steep learning curve, the time involved do the retouching, the cost for printer ink, photo paper, and so on... were not what was bothering her. Simply the boredom of doing 500 retouches.

But -- at least in her mind, she wasn't "scammed" by some photographer! She had all the negatives in hand. She never considered that most photographers actually have to the $600 for the software, work, and study their way through the learning curve, take the time to retouch all the photos, pay the cost to print them, and take the time to edit and put them in an album. That they pay for! (Let's not even bother mentioning the cost of their equipment, training and all the other miscellaneous details are going to creating a wedding portrait session to begin with.)

You bet! Photographers who actually consider their negatives as inventory, and want to charge a fair price for for their work, and time -- and not give it all away -- are real scam. (I'm being facetious.)

Do you have any idea how many brides never actually get a wedding album? All because they want to save a couple bucks and "print them themselves"? Do you have any idea how many brides never get around to doing it? Or, on the other side, do you know how many brides end up with crappy albums simply because they don't have a $600 piece of editing software? Or don't have the knowledge to properly use it? Or won't take the time to do all the work?

If you are a professional photographer and work weddings, then you know, or least you should know, how much work and effort is involved in creating a beautiful wedding album. (That includes the hardcover books that are popular these days.) We know that the brides will rarely ever put in the amount of time and effort involved in creating an album and they'll end up with either no album or substandard one at best.

When you take the easy way out, when you agree to give away the negatives or a CD rather than stand your ground, then you are truly ripping them off. You've cheated them. You know that they will never be able to enjoy the album the way it should be enjoyed or see the album the way should be seen. What's worse, you've cheated them and they will never know.

Now let's hit home a little bit, you've cheated yourself too! When they put together their substandard album and show it to their friends and relatives - your reputation is the one that's on the line. Do you think that people looking at this album are going to realize that it wasn't you who put it together? Do you want your reputation and FUTURE BOOKINGS to be dependent on an amateur who "hates Photoshop"?

I know that I sure don't. Stand your ground and stop giving away your work. Everyone will be better off for it.