Selling Digital File?

[Pehpsi]

G'day.

I have someone that wants to buy a pic of his car from the weekend. Wondering what the best export options would be? RGB, sRGB, Tiff, JPG? I'm also thinkin' around the $40 mark..

What says you..?

Cheers.

James.

[Bindii]

$40's is reasonable...cheap even.. especially as it seems you are sending him the actual digital file which means he can print as many as he wants off...

Jpeg and RGB would be fine also...

[shutterbug]

sell them a framed print

more $$ in your pocket and you can control the quality of the print

[Pehpsi]

Thanks Bind Yeah $40 may be a bit cheap, but it's not one of my best panning shots, so I think it's about right.. Sold my first pic for $100 which was nice but it was/is one of my best shots.

Cheers. I'll let ya know how I go..

[Pehpsi]

sell them a framed print

more $$ in your pocket and you can control the quality of the print

I haven't even made one print in the 22 months i've been taking photos

[W00DY]

Sold my first pic for $100 which was nice but it was/is one of my best shots.

Would a wedding photographer base their prices around how good the images are? I think you should have a set price for all your images otherwise if you take an amazing shot of this guy's car next week he will expect to only pay $40 for it and you will think $40 is too cheap for the best photo you have ever taken!!!

I think this is too cheap. But at the end of the day it is what you are happy with.

[Glen]

Would a wedding photographer base their prices around how good the images are?

Aren't you a wedding tog Woody?

[Pehpsi]

Thanks all, great advice.

[team piggy]

I sell a lot of Motorsport pics.

Welcome to one of the most underpriced and unforgiving sports you can take pics of! Unless its magazines buying, its very hard to get decent dollars for digital pics. Most of them will balk at $50 for an image!

$40 is reasonable, but make sure you dont sign copyright over and also have strict usage rights in place. Personal use only, no advertising or newsletters etc.
We have some that want them for newsletters etc and they have to pay more for that, unless there is some type of advertising for us out of it.

[Pehpsi]

I sell a lot of Motorsport pics.

Welcome to one of the most underpriced and unforgiving sports you can take pics of! Unless its magazines buying, its very hard to get decent dollars for digital pics. Most of them will balk at $50 for an image!

$40 is reasonable, but make sure you dont sign copyright over and also have strict usage rights in place. Personal use only, no advertising or newsletters etc.
We have some that want them for newsletters etc and they have to pay more for that, unless there is some type of advertising for us out of it.

Hey mate.

It's starting to look that way

My biggest problem has always been asking people for things, especially money... I totally suck at marketing myself

[MSF]

I have a slightly different outlook on this..

If I am shooting an event where the images will ONLY be wanted by the person in them, and they have a limited shelf life, then I will sell them at a lower price than say some of the images I have taken at major events of accidents or the like that are highy sought after.

You have to pick your events and pick your market, and price accordingly - otherwise you may be left with thousands of images that you will never sell.. They are worthless and no one will enjoy your hard work...

I'd much rather take take a thousand photos and sell half of them for a fair price, than sell 10% of them and make more money per print.
Even if the $$ I earn from either method was the same (not that it is.. people have a pricepoint at which they think they are being ripped off.. finding that pricepoint for each event is the hardest part)
I'd much rather have MORE happy customers and MORE repeat customers..

Case in point...,
I have been shooting the Sandown Raceway Easternats under contract for the last 5 years (we have the Non-Publishing rights and have a trade stand there) and we offer a CD of all the images of an entrants car ( could be 8 images or 88 images, it really depends on how many events they enter and where were are shooting from.) for $75.00. We do quite well from this as it offers fantastic value for money and we get people coming up to us and "pre-ordering" to make sure that we get lots of shots of their vehicle. I have no real interest if they print them out on a poster for their sponsors or send them to all their friends as I would never sell the image onto anyone else. I am happy with the pricing as I sell LOTS more, and have customers coming back year after year and I don't have a whole heap of images that I have shot that will never sell because I am pricing myself out of the market.

One of my favorite replies now when I am asked " What do you think about Digital photography now" is...

Digital is the single BEST and WORST thing that has happened to photography...
BEST - becasue anyone can now buy a quality camera and take some great pics for minimal outlay
WORST... because ANYONE can now buy a great camera and claim to be a "photograher"

I hope that doesn't offend anyone, but when I was last in at Canon CPS a little while back and chatting to the service staff one of them said to me..
"I hate it now that anyone with a DSLR now is a "Pro Photograher" and expects everyone to jump for them"...

This "ease" of getting into the market as a photograher means that more people know how cheap (in relative terms) it is to shoot at an event and make money, so they are more price conscious about buying images.. Many people don't appreciate the fact that you have spent $15,000 of gear to get the shot, they just see it as a "easy" thing to do...