restricting a clients copy rights?

!CorporealDream Sep 17, 2012

when shooting portraits or wedding photos, is it reasonable to expressly
prohibit 3rd party printing of the digital copies?

the last thing I want is my reputation being ruined because a client took
the photos to some cheap one hour photo place, and got crappy prints. I would
rather that all prints be purchased directly through me so I could take them
to a professional print shop I trust. (which just went out of business

)

Is this fairly standard practice for lone photographers, or is that only
expected of established well-known studios?

I know this isn't a "Which camera is better?" thread but this seems like
the place to ask.

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Devious Comments

`FallisPhoto Sep 22, 2012

Do you honestly think you can do that? You can't. If they want to stop by a drug store and go to the Kodak kiosk, there really isn't a way to stop them from doing that. For that matter, they can scan your photos at home, run off copies on their computer's printer and mail them all over. As long as they are only sending them to friends and family, it's no big deal, you'll almost certainly never find out about it, and it is impossible to stop them.

~ManualFocusPhoto Sep 19, 2012 Student Photographer

Cheap clients will always be cheap clients, and try to take as much as they can from you for free.
Honestly, the only digital files I provide are low res for facebook and such. And even then, I had clients skimp out on paying me for the prints and just printed them themselves from a 1 hour photo lab. Oh, well, their loss.

~Shurakai-Stock Sep 18, 2012 Professional Photographer

So long as you’re not providing the images on a DVD or some such, you shouldn’t even have to mention it. Just offer print packages and leave it at that. If anyone asks you about having the shots, be honest and tell them that you don’t give out the images in digital form because you prefer to do the printing yourself in order to maintain quality control (okay, it is a bit of a fib, but only in the one detail). You could, if you wanted to, offer to let them have web-optimized low-res images (600x800 or thereabouts, low to medium quality JPEG) that they can use on their facebook pages, as avatars, home screens on their iPads, etc. Those will be too small to make decent prints from anyway, and if you specifically mention that they are screen-optimized instead of print-optimized, and that they will look terrible if printed. Then if the client does go ahead and try to print from those, they’ll see that you were telling the truth. There’s not much you can do about cheap clients, except to smile, explain things clearly and firmly, and don’t let them walk all over you.

~rcooper102 Sep 17, 2012

A client owns no rights to your image except those that you license to them. Most wedding photographers depend on print sales to make a living and must restrict clients from going to crappy-ass 1 hour photo marts.

*EfanBruder Sep 22, 2012

This.

=Gokai-Chibi Sep 17, 2012 Student Digital Artist

I don't think there is anything wrong with that. If its your work you have that right

!CorporealDream Sep 17, 2012

I know, but weather it's right and wrong doesn't mean much to a customer. If no one else does that then restricting it could put me at a competitive disadvantage.

*EfanBruder Sep 22, 2012

That's false. It puts you at a competitive disadvantage to the bottom end of the client scale. If that's what you're aiming for, go right ahead and worry about it. Get above the people looking for Walmart prices on professional services and you get to people who don't have the time to screw around with getting prints from your digital files. They won't even want them, so long as you post some finished images at web resolution to facebook and tag them in the photos.

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