Question is: what is the form for charging for images (i.e. what used to be 'film and processing' costs)? Photographer has to re-tool (to digital) and incur costs, and client are saving scanning/repro costs, so surely a legitimate charge can be made per image supplied to reflect this.
Yes it should - how much depends on the market you're in, and whether or not you charge a higher commission fee for shooting digitally, as many do. I don't, so my digital costs have to be covered by the files alone.
As my work is editorial, this is difficult because �12 per high res file ( 25 megabyte approx ) is about as high as I can push it. You could charge much higher for the digital equivalent to medium or large format film.
A good rule of thumb is to take whatever you previously charged for scanning a picture from film, and then charge the same per colour corrected etc high resolution digital file.
The problem I'm facing is that some photographers who really haven't thought through the economics of all this just take the pictures off the card, burn them to CD, and then charge what snappy snaps does for a CD of uncorrected files from a roll of 36 colour neg.
There are no standards, not even emerging standards, for pricing digital work correctly, and they are urgently required.
But the simple answer to your question is that a legitimate charge per digital image not only can but should be made.
Andrew Wiard
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