Digital pricing and watermark questions

[Louise Jacob]

I recently took pics at a dance recital, after spending hours and hours to get them ready for purchase I am wondering about a few things. The first is pricing for digitalis images, if my print for a 5 by 7 is around 9.99$ what would a digital 5 by 7 be? The next issue I am faced with with the watermark, after doing my research others have suggested to put a semitransparent watermark in the center. I worry about screenshot. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

 

[tirediron]

$50 per print-ready file.

You don't generally watermark files you're selling.

 

[KmH]

Yep. $50 per digital photo file.
I only watermarked reduced resolution files intended for social media.

 

[Derrel]

If you live in a town filled with multi-millionaires, you might sell a couple of those $50 per print-ready files to parents from a dance recital. Otherwise...not so much.

 

[Bryston3bsst]

If you live in a town filled with multi-millionaires, you might sell a couple of those $50 per print-ready files to parents from a dance recital. Otherwise...not so much.

I agree. Good luck with that.

 

[Louise Jacob]

Thanks so much for all the feed back, and yes I agree that I should probably offer more then one for $50, how does 3 sound? As far the watermark, what I was referring to was when I put them on my website I am afraid that they will take a screenshot of the pic and use it that way. I have read many posts about this some people saying its free advertising were others say its stealing an image. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.

 

[tirediron]

The point is: You do NOT want to sell digital files. You want to sell prints. Once a digital file is gone, so is any further chance of making money on that image. If you're going to sell digital files, it needs to be worthwhile. I actually charge $65 per digital file for regular retail clients, and no, I don't sell many of them, but I sell quite a lot of prints. With respect to the watermark, okay, I mis-understood your original point. If you feel that people are that desparate for a low-res file that they would consider a screen-shot acceptable, by all means, use a 10-20% opacity watermark in the center.

 

[fstopwontstop]

Right-click is an actual useful function and I do not believe disabling it is a good practice. There are other ways, like stretching a 1x1 px transparent gif over the image, or setting the image to be the background-image of a div. Those methods require a bit of digging through the source to find the actual image source which would be semi decent deterrent.

However, it's all rather pointless since the nature of how a browser and the Internet works means that if someone visits your site those images must be downloaded to the visitors computer anyways, which means they technically already have them. They are just sitting in the temporary files on the visitors computer.

From a technical standpoint, I think a watermark is sufficient, and does not impede on the users experience of your site.

 

[KmH]

There is no way to prevent screen shots of online photographs.

Many professional photographers 'qualify' their clients, and use tried and tested sales techniques that make it easy to sell qualified clients digital files at $50 per.
I agree with John that the pricing of digital files is a way to encourage customers to buy high quality prints - not prints a customer gets made at Walmart or Walgreen's from a digital file.

Where else can the dance recital participants (parents) going to buy fully edited photographs of the dance recital made by Louise Jacob?

Apparently the OP has no business skills, no salesmanship skills, and no 'business plan'.
The time to determine your pricing is before you shoot with expectations you will sell the photos you shot.
Shooting on speculation is a sure way to pay to shoot, instead of being paid to shoot.
For a dance recital the T&I (Team & Individual) pricing/selling model used in youth sports can be applied.

The OP got the cart in front of the horse and as a consequence will be leaving a lot of money on the table.

 

[Louise Jacob]

Thanks for getting back to me, yes I do agree about wanting to sell prints and NOT the digital. But knowing these parents and having had the experience of being at dance competitions and what they bought from other photographers, I really feel I have to offer digital downloads, and I just checked with smug mug and they don't offer an option to sell several digitals for one price so the price would be for a single download. I also feel that $55 for a single one is way to high. Just trying to find a middle ground where its not so high. I set the 5 by 7 print at around 9.99 but keep going back and forth with that too. I based my price around prices I have seen at the competitions where I paid 10$ for 5 by 7 print and I cant remember what the downloads were priced at.

 

[Louise Jacob]

In response to Keith's response...... Please don't make assumptions and please if there

There is no way to prevent screen shots of online photographs.

Many professional photographers 'qualify' their clients, and use tried and tested sales techniques that make it easy to sell qualified clients digital files at $50 per.
I agree with John that the pricing of digital files is a way to encourage customers to buy high quality prints - not prints a customer gets made at Walmart or Walgreen's from a digital file.

Where else can the dance recital participants (parents) going to buy fully edited photographs of the dance recital made by Louise Jacob?

Apparently the OP has no business skills, no salesmanship skills, and no 'business plan'.
The time to determine your pricing is before you shoot with expectations you will sell the photos you shot.
Shooting on speculation is a sure way to pay to shoot, instead of being paid to shoot.
For a dance recital the T&I (Team & Individual) pricing/selling model used in youth sports can be applied.

The OP got the cart in front of the horse and as a consequence will be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Please Don't make false assumptions.... you have just turned nothing into something...its unfortunate that you feel the need to make these kinds of statements when you have NO idea who I am. I think maybe before saying such negative things about a person you should look within yourself and see what your own issues are and not transfer your problems/insecurity on someone else, especially on a photo forum for beginners... Who I am is a family therapist by profession not a photographer. So if you would like any advice on how to look at your own action or should I say responses, I can help, otherwise please don't respond to my questions or concerns about photography. You apparently don't have the ability to respond appropriately to others that are seeking help, nor do you have the concept of how your behavior/words are interpreted.

 

[Derrel]

Many professional photographers 'qualify' their clients, and use tried and tested sales techniques that make it easy to sell qualified clients digital files at $50 per.
I agree with John that the pricing of digital files is a way to encourage customers to buy high quality prints - not prints a customer gets made at Walmart or Walgreen's from a digital file.

Where else can the dance recital participants (parents) going to buy fully edited photographs of the dance recital made by Louise Jacob?

Apparently the OP has no business skills, no salesmanship skills, and no 'business plan'.
The time to determine your pricing is before you shoot with expectations you will sell the photos you shot.
Shooting on speculation is a sure way to pay to shoot, instead of being paid to shoot.
For a dance recital the T&I (Team & Individual) pricing/selling model used in youth sports can be applied.

The OP got the cart in front of the horse and as a consequence will be leaving a lot of money on the table.

This is coming from is the same poster who suggested just a few months ago that a medical/dental office's staff pictures, just plain old headshots, were worth a $3,000 annual licensing fee...you know, by virtue of salesmanship...

So, please Louise, do not take it personally when utterly ridiculous price quotes for on-spec, event work are bandied about. But by the same token, there is a real nugget in there, which is that you shot this event on-spec, without any qualified buyer or buyers in advance. If you had established a relationship with one, or two of the most,shall we say, most-obsessive "dance moms", you'd have made sure to get some really good images of the "golden child", including an umbrella lighted on-location family portrait,etc, and you'd be in a different position.

It was pretty clear to me that you approached this with a totally on-spec shooting approach, hence my "lotsa luck" on the $50-a-file cold selling price point. You might be a family therapist, but your photography business acumen is sorely lacking. It's not just, "Shoot then sell," these days...it is, "SELL first, then shoot--for clients."

 

[Louise Jacob]

Many professional photographers 'qualify' their clients, and use tried and tested sales techniques that make it easy to sell qualified clients digital files at $50 per.
I agree with John that the pricing of digital files is a way to encourage customers to buy high quality prints - not prints a customer gets made at Walmart or Walgreen's from a digital file.

Where else can the dance recital participants (parents) going to buy fully edited photographs of the dance recital made by Louise Jacob?

Apparently the OP has no business skills, no salesmanship skills, and no 'business plan'.
The time to determine your pricing is before you shoot with expectations you will sell the photos you shot.
Shooting on speculation is a sure way to pay to shoot, instead of being paid to shoot.
For a dance recital the T&I (Team & Individual) pricing/selling model used in youth sports can be applied.

The OP got the cart in front of the horse and as a consequence will be leaving a lot of money on the table.

This is coming from is the same poster who suggested just a few months ago that a medical/dental office's staff pictures, just plain old headshots, were worth a $3,000 annual licensing fee...you know, by virtue of salesmanship...

So, please Louise, do not take it personally when utterly ridiculous price quotes for on-spec, event work are bandied about. But by the same token, there is a real nugget in there, which is that you shot this event on-spec, without any qualified buyer or buyers in advance. If you had established a relationship with one, or two of the most,shall we say, most-obsessive "dance moms", you'd have made sure to get some really good images of the "golden child", including an umbrella lighted on-location family portrait,etc, and you'd be in a different position.

It was pretty clear to me that you approached this with a totally on-spec shooting approach, hence my "lotsa luck" on the $50-a-file cold selling price point. You might be a family therapist, but your photography business acumen is sorely lacking. It's not just, "Shoot then sell," these days...it is, "SELL first, then shoot--for clients."

I guess in order to be apart of this so called beginner photography forum, one would need to explain their enter life and the relationships that they hold. So to answer your question, I am one of the dance moms, who has made relationships with many of the other dance moms, and yes I did get pics of the "golden child...."

Please ...disregard my questions... this is truly not worth my time...

 

[vintagesnaps]

Usually the Beginners section seems to be used for questions or discussions about beginning photography not necessarily beginning professional photography; that's more often posted in the Aspiring Professional section. Spending time on the site would probably be helpful.

The questions you asked and what you described seemed as if you haven't yet learned about what's involved in doing pro photography work. It would involve learning about contracts, licensing images, how to determine pricing, etc. If you go to American Society of Media Photographers or look up PPA that would give you resources.

Typically a watermark might be used for display purposes but not for photos licensed/provided to a client. Photographers often make client photos available on a site where only the client can access the photos. I feel like it's also necessary to look at Terms & Conditions on a site before using it and posting photos there.