Wedding photographs not as good as expected... help!

It's a tricky one because the photographer holds the copyright to them which means no one can mess about with the images but him, I know you will get offers of help but just be careful, if you get permission from the other photographer then I would be glad to have a look for you.

I have done this in the past for couples that weren't happy with their photos from other photographers by the way.

*****@***************.**.**

Oh no, sorry to hear that you've not had a great experience with your photographer. What a let down for you ☹️

What was your agreement with them? Were you supposed to get fully edited images and did your agreement say how many?

There is a photographer I know of in Essex who only edits a select few images and gives the rest unedited for a cheaper price. Did you agree on a similar package?

What does your contract with them say, do you have actual copyright for the images to do what you want with, or just a printing licence? If you have copyright you should be able to get help from elsewhere.

You're welcome to give us an email if that's the case and we'll help however we can *******@*****************.**.**

Obviously can't help but just wanted to say I'm really sorry your photos weren't up to scratch

Really hope you have permission to use the photos as you wish and a lovely photography HIB can help.

Hiya we got married in March 2011 also in Essex and had exactly the same situation. (wonder if it is the same tog!) We went backwards and forwards for over a year with him, editing what seemed to us basic things like glare, sun spots etc, colours were all washed out and finally got a set we were semi happy with a year and a half after our wedding,. It really got to the stage where we were sick of looking at them and it spoiled the photos for me and I haven't looked at them since. I think we let him off too easily and should have perservered until were were 100% happy as there was no offer of any money back and apparently was all down to 'his style'. There was also more pics of my bridesmaids than there were of me and I mean loads. There were very few of me and only one I liked which was me sitting in the car. The best advice I can give you is do not settle. If he cannot make them look any better then it is up to him to go and use someone else who can. It isnt your problem it is his, you have paid for a service. As soon as you accept them from him then that is it.

I hope you get them sorted, I know how upsetting it is.

Can I ask a question?.... I don't understand how you pay for the pictures but the photographer still "owns" them. I can understand that they have took the images and if you only buy a few copies off them they are theirs to keep. But I don't get how they still own them if you pay for all the images on a memory stick or something. Surely I've paid for a service, you've done it and how they are mine. It's abit like buying a coat but the manufacture still owning it :-s

im not having a dig this is a genuine question

This is something that cannot be corrected after, and I wonder if what you describe is a documentary style f2.8 issue rather than out of focus as there does seem to be a lot of that about also

f2.8 is a setting on a lens that can be used for very low light and depending exact factors on the lens used the only parts of the image that are sharp will be only 1 or 2 cms depth. So if you focus on the eyes then nose will be out of focus

And some lenses at this extreme setting are not as sharp anywhere in the image when you look close (bigger picture)

Yes unfortunately that was not evident in any portfolio shots we saw.

This. really hope you get some progress

I'm £600 to process a wedding.

Anyhoo... did the photographer say these were going to be edited in the first instance? Because this seriously sounds like a 'Shoot n Burn Sid' where they rock up to your wedding, shoot and send. That's it. Especially as the said they'd 'Art Edit' 100 for you.

If you contact me directly via my website (below) along with the details of the photographer and what package / deal you took I'll give you an honest opinion, in confidence.

Bill, I have to say that I love you & your 'coat' analogies.

It sounds to me like your expecting an awful lot to be honest... 800 edited images doesnt seem right

as a past photographer I would never give out ALL images as their are bound to be bad shots (classic odds its not going to be perfect 100% of the time) and im always dubious of those that are willing to send over exposed or out of focus etc... images

what was your package?

if you package was for just for 800 images its massivly presumtious to assume they would be edited

was the photographer an experianced profesional?

as said above im dubious of someone who is a proffesional and would be willing to send out bad photos (its not exactly good for business)

and what was your budget?

if you budget wasnt huge then expecting 800 edited images is rediculous bare in mind £1600 would be just £2 per image (to include shooting it, editing it etc... and editing take a huge amount of time - a shoot that take 2 hours can take day/weeks to edit)

as mentioned above the photographer is the copyright holder so you actually can do anything without his permission even simple edits

Therein lies the rub.......

If you want to share an image with me (privately) that encapsulates your frustration, please do so and I will give an honest answer without any agenda......

Over the years on this forum, I have helped several brides who have had similar problems....

800 images is a lot to "edit", although all images I shoot at least get some tweaks and adjustments.....

Peter

Ask for RAWS (CR2 or Nefs etc.), these are the best to edit with.

As others said, 800 is a large amount of images to deliver and would take a long time to process them even if they are only fairly minor edits.

If I was you, I would sort through the best 200-300 images and then approach photographers who are willing to edit them.

I think a quick email to the photographer to ask permission is all that's needed. If the photographer is shipping unedited work, it would be reasonable to expect the client to hire someone to edit them.

@ Op

I can't comment on the legal side as I don't know the details of the agreement. However it is usual to expect to receive images representative to the samples you were shown.

I don't really think it's possible for anyone to guess what he was claiming to offer from the price paid. I agree you probably need to carefully look at the written words in the deal he offered.

However...

My photographer's deal was 'all good images taken on the day'. He didn't say they'd be edited but I assumed they would be to a certain extent. We got discs back with over 900 photos and we had copies of each in High, Med and low def versions, and they were as described, all good images. Not ones with eyes shut and red eyes and god knows what. Regardless of his wording, would you really expect this? no. Why would a professional photographer put that out there?!

My dad's a keen amateur photographer and he knows my tog through the local camera club etc and they were chatting about photoshop and random stuff like that when I wasn't really paying attention, and there's a programme my tog uses that he can upload say 1000 photos when he gets home from a wedding and leave it running overnight that does something. I can only assume it is what you'd describe as autoadjusting the lighting etc. I'm sure you pro togs will have an idea of what he was talking about. Lightroom or something I think. Now that is the bare minimum I'd have expected for my £710 - not a dear package by any means but you don't expect closed eyes and blurred images. I then can see that he's gone through a good number of them and further edited e.g. he's made several black and white etc, I know he didn't spend days and days on it, I had several online on his facebook and website within days and I had my discs by the time I got back from honeymoon.

What you describe is surely no advert at all for your tog's business,

Hope you get it sorted!

Firstly I want to say thank you to everyone who has replied so far, and sorry for the delay in responding, i've been at work and itching to get back here! The offers of help are extremely kind, thank you.

I have just checked through my emails from the photographer, I have kept all communication including the initial booking emails, which attach no contract whatsoever, I just have a letter confirming the booking, the deposit received, the price agreed and the coverage booked which is described as "photography to first dance, images on a USB stick". The price we paid was £795 which was discounted because of the time of year. I do agree that it doesn't state that the images would be edited, but we met face to face and discussed what would be provided and I was confident that what we would receive would be fully usable images. The only thing I didn't think I was getting was an album, hence the lower cost. The amount of images was discussed in person, and it's also detailed on the photographer's website, as it was at the time we booked. It's basic stuff like red eye, closed eyes etc, things i'd pick up if I was just editing my own holiday photographs at home.

I have no idea if I hold copyright to the images or not, i'm not sure how I would know that if it doesn't say so in any contract?

I really don't want to bad-mouth the photographer publicly and I do realise that to edit 800 images would be a tall order but that was what I thought i'd been sold. I was at least expecting that a selection of the best images would have been edited so that they look great and were ready to use in an album produced at my own cost, which I don't think is unreasonable for the price I paid. We were given a discount because of the time of year and the fact it was a Friday so the actual package price was more expensive initially.

Thank you ?

Im sure that your photos are fantastic but putting 1000 photos through an auto adjust is not quite what I would call editing.

Each and every one of mine gets hand assessed and corrected colour and light one by one.

Yes, I may have been a bit naive about that but I had no idea a photographer would even do that, provide images without first editing them?! I can't imagine many brides want unedited photographs back, but perhaps that's where i'm out of touch! It was certainly never advised that that was what we should expect when we met. I should add that I mentioned this to the tog in question when I first complained and the explanation was that editing is just selecting which images are included and that I understood editing to mean something else. But my point is that I have paid for all the images, so what exactly was to be selected/edited? And surely editing does mean editing?!