You've instructed the photographer, visited the shoot, seen the results on their notebook and are now looking forward to receiving your disk full of amazing new imagery. The DVD arrives and as expected the photos are stunning, more than you could have asked for, yet there seems to be a mistake with the invoice, what's this digital processing fee all about?
From experience many customers either simply don't recognize the costs associated in shooting digitally or they appear uneager to pay for something that they feel should be free due to the 'virtual' nature of digital files. Indeed there are no pricey Polaroids, film, wet processing, printing and courier charges with digital capture.
In the past working out the costs of a shoot merely involved adding up the price of the film used, the 'wet' developing costs and the presentation of the final prints or transparencies, whether conducted by the photo-lab or by myself. Add on a few percent for the time in handling the whole procedure and the costs involved with the shoot was a simple figure to arrive at. I hardly ever got involved with scanning and retouching, that was a separate task and an extra cost for the customer which was commonly done by a designer or post-production agency, but on the scarce occasions I did, scanning fees would be extra to these costs also. Now things are notably different.
I don't now shoot film and yes the merits both to myself and the client in shooting digitally are massive. I feel that the most sizeable pros are the new degree of creative control the professional photographer and customer has over the final images plus the time saved by the whole digital process. But there are now numerous less apparent and hidden costs involved in getting to this final image file:
Digital Camera Equipment. Just to be able to capture digital files the photographer must now continually invest in extremely costly digital cameras, far more expensive than their film counterparts. Film cameras are comparably simple mechanical devices that would last a careful photographer for many years whereas digital cameras are full of technology that soon becomes obselete so therefore need constant upgrading. Digital cameras also seem to break more often, let alone the regular sensor cleaning required!
RAW file processing and retouching. Professional digital capture often generates a RAW image file, a kind of negative that unlike jpeg files will need fine tuning to get the correct level of exposure, colour correction and sharpening. These RAW files can best be compared to a traditional film based negative that needs to be lab processed, printed, scanned and finally retouched to the clients prerequisites. But rather than dodging or burning with an enlarger the photographer must now do this key retouching work in image manipulation software like Adobe Photoshop. Last these comprehensively edited and retouched files will either be printed by a calibrated desktop printer, transferred to the client via some sort of digital media or sent via email/ftp. High end computer hardware doesn't come cheap, or the image manipulation software that photographers must learn to efficiently use. Such high-priced items also have the nasty habit of devaluing very speedily too, plus extensive training is often needed to enable the photographer to use skillfully.
Time. These 'unseen' duties and skills all require the professional photographer to spend appreciable time in processing the perfect shot before the files are handed over to the client. The client may well receive the completed work sooner than with traditional film based media but in many ways the work load and skill set of the photographer has actually increased. Separate scanning and retouching costs could be a thing of the past for customers but the photographer still needs compensating for his, now significant, part in this digital production process.
Overall, photographers digital processing fees simply reflect the ongoing capitol investments in appropriate professional equipment, skills essential to undertake such tasks and the labour time incurred in delivering the customer with finished digitally captured, edited and presented image files.
