stacyreeves || photography

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What are digital negatives?
Think about what film negatives are.. Small, unedited, easy to store, with lots of potential. Digital negatives are the same way. These files are virtually straight out of the camera, very minor tweaking if any, no retouching, no resizing. They are a blank canvas, with lots of potential, if you know how to use them. However, digital negatives are NOT the images you see on our website galleries, in our portfolio, in our albums, and on our blog. The photos we present have had extensive editing and retouching to make them the best they can be.

Why would I want to purchase them?
Many people want these files because they feel better about having a digital copy of all of their wedding images, or because they want to print the photos off themselves, or because they want to post their photos online, such as on Facebook, MySpace, or a personal wedding website, and we are happy to sell the digital negatives to anyone who wants to purchase them.

When I purchase the digital negatives, does that mean I own the copyright?
No. We retain the copyright to every image we take, and we do not sell the copyright ownership to any person, for any price. When you purchase the digital negatives, you receive the images, plus a written copyright release that gives you permission to use the images for certain purposes, such as making prints or other photo products, posting on a website, or for personal use. The release is specific to the person or persons purchasing the digital negatives only, and cannot be duplicated for others’ use.

Why are your photos so expensive?
The process that each image goes through before being printed can take hours, and is very skilled work, so we charge accordingly for this service. This is why there is such a big price difference between taking a digital negative to your local neighborhood one-hour photo and getting a 4×6 for $.20 and purchasing one from us for $15. At the one-hour photo place, you are paying for the low-quality paper it is printed on, the antiquated equipment that prints it, and the two seconds it takes them to run the image through some generic tweaking (which usually makes the image WORSE, not better). When you purchase from the photographer directly, you are getting an image printed by a professional photo lab on super high-quality photographic paper and whatever time it takes us to carefully tweak and retouch the image and then calibrate it to the specific printer that our lab will be using, as well as our unconditional guarantee that if something is wrong with the print you receive, we will replace it free of charge until you are satisfied. This requires expensive computer software and hardware, as well as lots and lots of time (roughly 30-45 minutes per image). For large prints, we also have a special process that allows us to enlarge the image to virtually any size without any loss of quality. This is something that you just can’t get at one-hour photo shops.

What exactly does “editing” a photo entail?
This is truly a huge question, and hard to answer with words. It can mean increasing contrast, adjusting the white balance, changing color hues, removing pimples, slimming down unattractive body parts, removing glasses or braces, opening closed eyes, erasing debris or distracting backgrounds, adding special effects like vignettes or sepia, etc. The possibilities are truly endless, and every single image requires something different.

It’s much easier to answer this question visually. Here are a few “before and after” examples:

Here’s an example of all the different things that can be done to just one photo!
(click to see a larger view)

If this doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will!

I love the look of the edited photos, but I want the digital negatives. Can I pay extra for you to retouch all of them?
For an average wedding with 500 proofs, it would take us around 250 hours to do this, which would take six weeks of working non-stop 40 hour weeks, and the cost would run about $10,000. Frankly, although we would love that money, we cannot sacrifice that much of our time or we would be forced to neglect our other clients. We can do retouching on individual files for $35 an hour (typically two images per hour), and we are also happy to provide you with a retouched digital file of any image that you order at the size you order it (meaning a 4×6 file for a 4×6 print, and so on) at no extra charge.

Note: This blog has moved, and will soon be deleted. Please visit the NEW blog at www.stacyreeves.com.