What photographers are doing with the photos? Why photographers are so expensive and why clients have to wait sometimes weeks for their photos? Here is an explanation.
It is not evident for most clients that when a photographer is shooting portraits for about two hours then he or she will have to work additional ten hours in front of the computer to post process the pictures in photoshop. Importing, selecting, editing, retouching and exporting is a very time-consuming process which has a huge effect on price.
Some people might ask at this point: Ok, can I just have all the original pictures without any post processing, so it is going to be cheaper? Most professional probably will reply a simple „No”.
To understand this just think about restaurants. When you are going to a fast food restaurant your food is all prepared with different techniques so you’ll get your hamburger ready within 2 minites after ordering it. Evidently the quality of the meat is not as qood as a steak in a $$$ restaurant, but everybody is fine with that. You’ll pay what you get for. The approach is the same with cellphone cameras. A picture is usually not vivid itself, but cellhone producers are adding some immediate post processing effect to your picture, shuch as sharpening, saturation, contrast and noise reduction. It happens automatically so you don’t have to deal with that (you don’t even know about it) but in exchange you have limited chances to further edit your picture and achieve good quality for example for printings.
Professionals are all shooting in high resolution RAW format instead of JPG which means that the original picture is really raw so the photo requires lot of post processing to look nice. Such as the raw meat in your favorite steakhouse when it is in front of the chef. So, would you go to a restaurant and ask the chef not to worry about post processing (cooking) the meat but simply give it to you on a reduced price in raw format? I guess the answer is no. So, why would you do the same with your photographer? 🙂
It is the chef’s responsibility to decide cooking methodology, adding flavors and decorate the plate. It is the same with photographers, it is their responsibility to decide which post processing techniques they will use. One raw photo can get dozens of different outcome. This is why it is very important to check carefully the portfolio of your chosen photographer, as not everybody has the same taste.
Post Processing Yes or No
What photographers are doing with the photos? Why photographers are so expensive and why clients have to wait sometimes weeks for […]
