Shoot and burn is a process where a photographer is employed to simply shoot the pictures and copy them to a CD or DVD. This policy started a few years ago in the Wedding industry and is beginning to spread into the Senior Portrait sector. This discussion is not intended to argue the morals of this process as it is here to stay but to make you aware of the pitfalls of this approach.

It’s a business

When you choose to use the services of a professional photographer, there are numerous reason why you made that decision. Here is some information to enlighten you as to what the professional photographer is there to do for you. Since digital photography has all but replaced film, the job of the photographer has expanded to encompass post processing which the film labs used to do. No longer can your professional photographer impeccably light, compose, and capture beautiful images and ship them off to the lab to be processes and printed. With film, the cost of capture was a factor in the number of images to be processed. A typical portrait session in film may have taken up a single roll of 36 or a couple rolls of 24. In digital the number of images captured can be multiples of that for the same amount of time. All these images require selection, sorting, color correcting and retouching as necessary. This does not include any special artistic work on the images. This equates to a good amount of time invested in your beautiful images on the part of your photographer.

It is because of the time investment, care and detail your professional photographer expends in providing you with the highest quality of images that photographs cost what they do. Further, operating a photography business is all about revenue streams, services and products are what sustain the business. When you receive a CD or DVD of images, a primary revenue stream has been eliminated. This is why the cost to purchase a CD/DVD only is so expensive, you are paying for the photographers post processing services and loss of revenue.

Quality

The vast majority of printed photographs are printed in the 4x6 format. Unfortunately, most images never see paper, they get shipped off to a social media site for friends and family to see. This is a wonderful technology that has enabled a level of connectivity that could never have been imagined back in the day. Here is the problem, when viewed through social media sites, the image quality has been reduced to allow  efficient transfer of data for average bandwidth that is used on the net. This works well for viewing but not printing pictures.

When ordering prints through stores such as COSTCO and Wal-Mart, you might want to consider the following:

1. •Color Balance - If the color is not right from the images you had on a CD what are your options.
   

2. •Archival Quality - Even though prints may be on Kodak or Fuji paper, this does not mean the images will withstand the test of time when compared to a professional lab produced picture. Often times these images may get a blue cast to them when left unprotected. This is caused by the types of inks that are being applied to the paper. For a more detailed discussion on this, visit our Teck-Talk right here.
   

3. •Service - Here we are not talking about turn-around service because the big-box boys have that won hands down. What they can’t touch a professional photographer and lab with though is quality of print and care of the process.
   

Conclusion

Obviously the choice is yours as to what you want to do but we wanted you to be aware of the different aspects of print processing. The professional photographer is not a commodity that can compete with discount photo processors. They are individuals that use the creative process to produce beautiful artwork for your enjoyment.