Photographers

Hi Kate There are certainly plenty of photographers who offer packages which include a CD and reproduction rights (not copyright) but this would allow you to make your own prints.

As for whether it is cheaper, it will depend on the individual photographer. You are obviously paying for the photographers time and they still have to process the images after the wedding. Photographers also lose print sales, so often factor that cost in.

Do you have a budget in mind?

The positives are that you can print the images you want. The negatives are that you might not get prints that are as good a quality as your photographer. Also the albums that you have seen are probably those only available to photographers.

A lot of photographers on here offer packages with CD. We offer one that includes an engagement shoot, DVD slideshow and full day coverage and travel costs. Feel free to PM me if you want more information and a website link.

Good luck.

TG

I managed to find (after MUCH searching) a photographer who does a cheaper price for smaller civil weddings. We are paying £395 for reportage photos with some group shots, for the reproduction rights. She'll give us all the images, inc some b&W and some B&W with one colour item picked out (such as B&W with just my bouquet in colour) If we want an album, she showed us 3 which were £50, all lovely and modern, no faux wrinkly leather in sight ;-)

We only want her from 4.30-7.30pm though, but i am very happy with the cost.

Where in the UK are you?

J

We had a small budget for photography as our venue cost so much and found several photographers offering either a small album or only prints, cd etc.

The one we eventually booked was OK, cost £650 and we got 150 printed photos, CD & negatives (print photographer) plus her time for about 3 hours. For us it was a good option and we then created photobooks on boots.com which were reasonable quality for a great price - £20 and £30 plus some reprints for us and our Mums.

I wish our photographer had at least been digital as some shots were disappointing but we got what we paid for and the result was worth the money.

The advantage is that your only paying for the photographing photo taking skills, not album building skills, so you can save money.

The disadvantages are:

The photographer is not responsible for how the prints come out, only the CD, you are responsible for the finished product.

You won't get the same quality of prints

You won't get the same quality of album

You may make a mistake in album selection and get something non-archival which overtime could affect the longevity of your prints.

You have to prepare the album.

There is also the issue of quality. If you take images straight from the camera and send them off to your local print shop you are not going to get the same level of reproduction as someone who shoots in RAW format, spends time post processing the images and then send them to a professional lab or prints them using a full colour managed work flow. Many photorgaphers are reluctant to have their images treated this way as it means they lose the ability to do proper quality control and therefore their reputation suffers.

Hi Kate

Where in the UK are you based? We cover the north of england so drop me an email if you're interested in finding out more.

We offer a high res CD with reproduction rights. We don't spend any less time editing the images as we would were we not providing a CD. If you look around you will find that an increasing number of photographers offer this option as the access to high quality printing companies is becoming more widespread and many clients wish to be able to get their own prints done, without paying as high prices as they would through a photographer.

Hope that helps

Alison.

Plenty of good and bad photographers offer this service

The reason you may only be shown expensive albums is that believe it or not, we have a pride (as a profession) in what we do. In the background, many many hours will be spent making the album, choosing the right materials, rejecting things for the smallest blemish etc.. Working with cheap albums just doesnt cut it when you have this ethos. I sent one print back 3 times last week - for a printing flaw it took somone else in the office 5 mins to see, once I had pointed it out. My customers never see this side of the process

We offer anything ranging from DVD only through to storybooks and hand printed silver prints. Price is not the real issue for us.. finding the highest quality products to offer you was our prime objective. We want your and your realtives for generations to come to be looking at a beautiful photograph, that hasnt faded, and still looks fantastic

To answer your question

Positive:
- You may save some money
- If you are inclined and trained in editing and typesetting etc.. you have more creative control over the final finished product
- You know where the digital/film negatives are, today, tommorow, in 10 years time, so tracking down the photographer might not be an issue when you want a print in 20 years - often people buy the disk and the album for this reason alone


Negative:
- You need a strategy for looking after your digital archive of images (DVD's have a limited life)
- Editing and typesetting albums and ordering and cropping prints is hard work, and full of pitfalls for the un-initiated
- Colour rendition might be poor due to the lack of colour profiling between the photographer and the chosen lab (we attach print profile and work in a specific colourspace to suit the lab we use)
- If you damage the disk, and dont have a backup, you might be totally up the creek without a paddle
- most of the very bes albums are not available for the public to buy
- you will probrably use non-acid-free materials, causing the photographs to discolour or fade over a short period of time

Afterthought
- the original photographer would still make you an album if it all goes wrong, or you just cant manage it
- look at the photographs your mum took of you as a kid - look at the colour fading etc. use the wrong materials, or the wrong lab, and this is what you might end up with in 20 years

Richard King

"- look at the photographs your mum took of you as a kid - look at the colour fading etc. use the wrong materials, or the wrong lab, and this is what you might end up with in 20 years"

Richard this is true, although the couple need to book a photographer who can guarantee that the end prints will have archival longevity. From "other" forums, we pros hear of too many "pros" that use cheap quick print labs that are not archival qualit.

This isn't meant as a scarer, although it is an issue that I would ask every couple to check with their photographer. If you are getting a lot of prints cheaply, be very careful.

That's very true. When I'm providing prints I only ever provide archival prints.

That said, I'm under constant pressure from brides to cut prices and of course cut prices mean cut corners. As a result I offer two types of photobook, a super duper high quality one with archival printing, and a budget album using an offset printing mehtod for which the technology I can get no manufacturer to quote longevity on.

I always recommend the super duper one, in fact I even encourage brides to go that route by including the CD with that album, but some brides who want to cut costs go for the cheaper albums and its specifically written into the contract I can't guarantee the longevity of these.

Ultimately you get what you pay for.

On a personal note I prefer to supply the super duper album, or even just prints to the cheaper album, but that's personal. In business my job is to try and provide a product that clients want and if that's what the market wants I'll supply it. I will advise them of the pitfalls of this route and educate them but ultimately (and truthfully) I'm a business first and a photographer second and I stay in business by selling products clients ask for and are happy with.

You get what you pay for, this is very true. Our photographer was cheap at our wedding and it shows, old style album and he was very keen to move onto the next wedding. Our friends had a super expensive album, circa £1200 which looks wonderful however that was still more than I would have been happy to pay.

No doubt many photographers have refined their packages based on demand as well as to maintain their reputation. We find most brides go for the top of the range package or the super cheap, never in the middle so adjusted our prices to suite. I would say if your on a budget find one who will give you the digital prints, goto the likes of photobox.com and get yourself and album you built. The togs could do a very professional job but on a budget they will look great, maybe better than a super cheap photographer and what they produce. If I had a choice I would get a good photographer and have digital only for me to make the album. But thats probably because Im handy with Photoshop. Then just take care of the digital copies, there are many online storage companies to store your files.

Thanks everyone for the advice. You thought of some things I hadn't thought about. The idea of creating my own wedding album is appealing but at the same time I don't know if my editing skills are up to the job !

The quote I ve been given is £550 which is about half the price of anything I ve seen before (others were selling the rights for £1000) and I am based in the North-East (Darlington to be exacte) so if anyone has any good tips on photographers who do a good album for under £750 with a good number of prints (around 30+) please let me know! I am getting a bit tired of searching!

Thanks everyone

Kate x

Simon and Alison are local-ish to you......

Hi Kate

We are local to you (Spennymoor), feel free to have a look at our website www.marctoddphotography.com

We offer a hitchers discount, so if you contact us through the website mention you saw us on Hitched. If you let me know exactly what it is you want we will see what we can do.

TG

Photobox do some wonderful albums, they dont have the prestige of the pro photographers ones but its really easy. Upload your pics, choose a style and just drag and drop your pics. Add some text, change the layout.

The pro ones tend to photoshop the images together and give you full page wall to wall prints. However as you have said your budget may not accomodate this.

For some their wedding day is all they have thought about since they were small and will pay for the absolute best. For others (like us) it was just about being together and didnt want to spend the rest of our lives in debt.