Do you print your own photos, or do you burn them to a CD/DVD?

[GingerPandemic]

I have just started taking portraits for people, and I was curious about what the norm was for portrait photography now:

Do you print your own photos with photo packages and stuff?
Or do you burn the images onto a CD/DVD along with a print release so they can get them printed themselves?

I'm not doing anything as fancy as weddings, just simple shoots like senior pictures, maternity, etc. No studio, just outside. It seems like the majority of these users just want the pictures to post on Facebook and so on, so I was just going to burn the images (both at full size and at a more manageable "social networking" file size) onto a disc with the print release. That way if they want prints, they can take them to a printer to have them done.

I used to work in the printing department at an office supply store, and we would do this for customers all the time. We had a lot of photographers that would refer their customers to us.


I know there are pros and cons of printing your own images, but my husband is concerned that I will be missing out on business if I don't offer printing. Having worked for a digital printing company, I know that there are several photographers in the area who definitely don't print their own images, but his argument was "Why go to you, when I can go to someone who offers the whole package?"

So I was just curious as to what other photographers think on the subject!

[Sexy]

I burn them usualy

[fhotoace]

Your question is best answered this way.

Whatever you bill for shooting the event or wedding, that figure should be what it costs you to run your business.

https://www.nppa.org/calculator

What you bill for any prints the client orders, is supposed to be your profit. The cost of doing business includes buying a new camera body every three to five years to replace your oldest camera, upgrading your computer and buying new software as time goes by.

Most of my colleagues who shoot events, place a gallery on either Smugmug or Zenphoto. Clients then pick out the images they want printed and those two services fulfill the orders. You set the prices and they have the images printed and shipped. At the end of the month (or when you request), your profits are deposited into your business account

These services relieve you from all the work of having prints made and shipping them to your clients and leave more time for you to do your marketing and out shooting your photos.

A typical event usually includes about 250 shots (depending upon the number of hours spent shooting) and after you have edited out all the clinkers, out of focus, bad composition or blurry shots, you should end up with around 180 to 200 best of the best.

Use Lightroom to process all the RAW files at one time, exporting them as high quality JPEG's. Once you have all those files processed, Burn a DVD backup of both the RAW and JPEG files. Next upload the JPEG files to the service as a unique gallery.. Email the link to to the gallery and you are done.No muss, no fuss. The process of editing (sorting) processing the RAW files, burning the DVD backup only takes about two more hours of your time once you get home from the assignment. I usually start the upload of my new gallery just before I go to bed and by morning they are all on line, ready for your clients to start ordering