Why Printing is Critical To Business Success!
“Print is dead.” “No one wants to buy prints.” These are some of the excuses I see people posting about why they don’t offer prints for their clients. I will get into the foolishness of these statements shortly.
Printing your images shows you in no uncertain terms what you could improve on in terms of your lighting and how you compose your images.
Yes; you must compose your images a bit differently for print than you do for the web to allow for the different paper sizes.
That is something you wouldn’t know if you didn’t print your images. That is something you learn when you’re shooting for publication. So much of the images get cut off when cropping for 8×10 or 11×14.
Prints also look very different than they do online where the screen is back lit to make everything look great! Print is relatively unforgiving and will expose everything you may have done incorrectly.
It helps train your eye as you’re shooting the images what to look for, and how to light your photos. This is something I teach in my Light To Print Photography Workshops.
Now to the foolishness of saying that no one wants prints.
A few days ago, some of you may have seen on my Instagram story that I was busy selecting images to send to one of the many print labs available.
Well I got quite a bit of feedback on that and it was pretty much along the lines of “why would you waste time doing that since no one buys prints anyway!”
My response to this is that what those people should really be saying is that no one buys prints from them! Yes it is absolutely personal.
Think about this. School pictures are still taken each and every year in schools all over the country. Parents are paying a premium for those images. Guess what!
Those photos still come in prints. So the notion that no one is buying prints is at best a flawed one.
I submit that you have someone come in for a glamour or boudoir shoot and pay your sitting fee; why wouldn’t you want to generate more revenues by selling them prints from their shoot?
If you’re a wedding photographer and not selling your brides prints and albums then you’re just wasting opportunities and I can’t help shake my head wondering what is really wrong with you! Especially those of you doing weddings for under $5,000.
Why would you leave money on the table? After all you are running a business right? The single purpose of a business is to turn a profit. Selling prints is your profit center.
There is a reason however that people aren’t buying; and aren’t going to be buying prints from you. Are you ready for it?
They’re not buying or going to buy prints, or albums because you don’t have any to show them.
That’s right! People buy what you show.
If you wish to sell 11″ x 14″ metallic prints then you damn well better have some to show your clients or else you’re right. No one is going to buy them from you.
Hammer this into your brains. ‘You sell what you show! Facts tell; stories sell!’
If you’re not selling prints then you need to re-evaluate how you conduct your business.
Giving print rights to have your customers go elsewhere to get their images printed is foolishness for a number of reasons.
Why would you let one of the big box stores make money that should be yours? Not to mention the risk you assume with those entities.
Your images should only be printed by a professional photo lab. Convenience shopping and drug stores are not those labs.
They are also not going to do the level of customer care and quality control a real lab will do.
Plus, if you’re shooting glamour or boudoir those stores tend to frown down upon printing anything provocative let alone anything with nudity.
Sometimes our clients are comfortable showing off and why would you want to not be able to print that for them!
Printing also gives you something to hang up on your walls to display your work.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments regarding my thoughts on this matter.
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