Let's walk through The Truth Untold-3 Reasons Why Photographers Hardly Gives You Raw Photo. One of the most difficult challenges is dealing with the customer request: “I love the photos from my wedding! Can I get all of the RAW files or images that you shot? You don’t need to edit them or anything.” In order to answer this request appropriately, 48 Studio had to ask various customers and carried out a survey to understand where the client is coming from, and what makes this question so intimidating to respond to. This is exactly what we are covering in this article.
What Is RAW File?
Technically, a digital camera's memory card stores RAW photo data, which are big, uncompressed photos. In order to get the most out of your wedding images, photographers always shoot RAW. Additionally, RAW photos provide lots of good advantages for the wedding photographer such as more flexibility for editing, more creative control, better detail, and dynamic range. However, these RAW photos don't do anything good for the customers
Technically, a digital camera's memory card stores RAW photo data, which are big, uncompressed photos. Or you can consider RAW files to be digital negative or like what you had before you put the photo in a dark room and the RAW files contain all the data in the photo for you to process later. Additionally, RAW photos provide lots of good advantages for the wedding photographer such as more flexibility for editing, more creative control, better detail, and dynamic range, that's why in order to get the most out of your wedding images, photographers always shoot RAW.
However, these RAW photos don't bring any good to the customers because?
RAW Photos Are RAW Ingredients
Source: 48 Studio
If you ask a professional photographer for their RAW files, you'll almost certainly get a resounding no. Hang in there, you might get frustrated when getting a blunt answer from your wedding photographers. 48 Studio understands your concerns, “I think the photographer missed some of our pictures”, “What if they shoot a lot but only edit a quarter of them?”, “We want RAW photos because we need to fasten the process and we know how to edit.”
Let's make use of a metaphor. Imagine that you're dining at McDonald's, it's one of the largest American fast-food chains in the world. The place is known for its hamburgers, and fried chickens,… but french fries pique your interest and you opt to dine there. When you order one of McDonald's specialties, specifically request that the meal be served to you raw on a plate. This food has been properly prepared by the cook. Desiring to provide the customers with the finest possible culinary experience, he's collected the materials and spent hours perfecting his cooking expertise. However, if you don't devour it in the way he intended, you won't get the excellent meal he expected.
When a photographer takes a picture, they are collecting the raw ingredients for a distinctive dish. The precise editing, color correction, and skin retouching are all like preparing and cooking those raw ingredients. Asking a skilled photographer for their RAW images would be like receiving half of an incomplete piece of art right? We believe you don't want the amount of money you spend on wedding photos to turn out to receive a raw potato instead of appetizing french fries.
The Selection Of RAW Photos
There is a quality control procedure that occurs when a photographer goes over the photos, which takes many hours and years of expertise. This guarantees that you get every photograph that represents both their work and the memories of your wedding day. Taking a thousand photos but that includes testing photos, they are unfit to reflect the level you have set for your wedding so why would you want the ‘potato's skin' when you already pay for the final product which is the ‘french fries' right?
You've paid for a professional service, and we are grateful to be able to deliver it.
The Brand's Reputation
Source: Nordic Adventure Wedding
Everything your photographers do in the process of creating your final photos is part of their brand. Photographers may do things with their images that aren't feasible with the camera's built-in features when using photo editing software. Make your photos stand out from the crowd without it. Editing is an important aspect of the final product's creation. It presents the brand's unique characters. This is why they mostly keep the RAW photos to themselves, the studios don't want your RAW file to be leaked out and published online since many people can steal it and edit it without permission. Something like this wouldn't be worth your name being attached to.
Clients often employ photographers based on the quality of their photos. The key to making that look completely distinctive to you is photo editing. That is why every professional photographer will modify their images to some extent. 48 Studio has worked diligently to ensure that all of our professional “products” have a consistent look. All of the photos that come through our editing process are given exactly that kind of devotion. We strive to make sure that every shot we take has perfect lighting and contrast. Many brides and grooms have told me they are confident in our work because of how consistent it has been throughout the years. All of the customer feedback provides us peace of mind, knowing what to expect from your photographers in advance.
