How to sell prints as a photographer
How to Print, Price and Sell Your Photography
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hi I'm Adam and welcome back to first
man photography where today I'm going to
take you behind the scenes and show you
how to make print price package and sell
your photography it's a big one there's
something in here for everyone so let's
go
before we get going today though this
video is sponsored by Canon and more
specifically the Canon Image program Pro
1000 a stunning 80 printer that I have
been using for years and we'll talk a
bit more about that in the printing
section okay what we're going to do is
follow the journey follow the adventure
that a photograph takes from inception
right through until it ends up on
somebody's wall and I'll show you what I
do at every stage including how to price
and sell your work it doesn't really
matter what genre of Photography you do
but I am a landscape photographer so
there there may be a little bias towards
that
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
foreign
District on what is a beautiful another
beautiful Frozen morning and I'm set up
for a shot and the camera I am using in
today's video is the Canon R5 I've used
a Canon 5D Mark IV for years Canon have
sent me this one to use for a little
while and absolutely love it I've got to
say it just works it's freezing cold
this morning about minus five degrees
and it hasn't skipped a beat I'm just
absolutely blessed with this site here
feeling really good about that I want to
keep looking at it but it's the light
that initially captured my attention
those trees in the distance over the
other side just picking up that lighter
there's a bit of haze in the air and
then that Crag there which just looks
fantastic in the Mist with the trees but
then the lower half of the image is much
cooler it's an image of two halves
really we've got this cool wintry scene
down below and then up into that warmth
of that like I think it's a really
exciting image a really Dynamic image
and it feels like there's a lot of
energy in it I think that's the kind of
overriding feeling I'm getting anyway
and I want to try and reproduce that in
the image I have on the Canon RF 24 to
70 lens and
rather than sort of put the Crag right
in the middle something like that I've
sent it over to the left hand side a
little bit adjusted the perspective so
we get the winter scene down below that
off to the left hand side and I want to
make the most of the trees over to the
right hand side so I've pushed like I've
pushed the composition right a bit to
get more of that in and then I get more
of the mountain and above it and that
works because the sky is completely blue
so the less of that I have in the image
the more interesting I think it will be
because those flat blue skies I don't
know they're just not going to work for
me I don't think in this image so I want
to minimize the amount of sky in there I
think that's the basic premise of what
I'm doing here so let me flick the
camera over into manual mode and I'm
going to shoot at f11 because everything
is away in the distance I'll get nice
front to back sharpness with that and
that's going to work just nicely I'm at
on 30 for 30th of a second an ISO 100
100 because of the dynamic range in that
scene I am going to brackets I think one
stop either side maybe two just to be
sure that I get as much detail in this
as possible because I'm printing it I
want it to look really really good close
up with as much fine detail as possible
I want this to be a really special print
yeah I think that's a good start Let's
uh
fire that off in anticipation
of that with I love it abs
foreign
it does feel like two images
and especially with the bracketing let
me just show you let me spin it around
you've got the brighter one
showing the foreground there which just
looks lovely
and then if I go that way you get the
sky in the top of the image looking
pretty nice that's the one in the middle
I could probably edit it just off that
to be honest with the dynamic range that
this camera provides that may be
what I end up doing but yeah I think
that's going to be fantastic the lights
just beautiful and the wintry swamp
foreign
[Music]
tastic morning there and I'm very very
pleased with the image but if you
followed this channel for a long time
you will know that I advocate for
printing your images photography was
never designed to be consumed on a
screen viewing or making a print it's
just joyful the image becomes physical
tangible and for me it's just a much
more meaningful experience than when it
just remains digital it's also the thing
that turns your photograph into
something with genuine value so let's
print the image and as you know this
video is sponsored by Canon and we're
going to use this the Canon Image
program Pro 1000 I've had this printer
for years now and the quality it
produces really is second to none it
prints up to A2 in size and uses a Lucia
Pro 12 ink system that produces
incredible color and fine detail one of
the inks is the chroma Optimizer which
eliminates any chance of bronzing and
delivers enhanced black density natural
color and uniform glossiness one of my
favorite things about this printer is
not so long ago Canon updated the
firmware which means it will now also
accept Roll paper so you can make huge
panoramas up to 1.2 meters long like
this one and like this one the software
that Canon provide also makes it
extremely easy to use including the
Canon accounting manager you just put
the price of your ink and your paper in
and it will calculate the price of the
print so this A2 print here this one
which I'm quite happy with as well if we
open it up from the list we can see the
total cost of the print is five pounds
86 the sheet of paper costs five pound
twenty and as you can see the ink was 66
Pence if you're going to have something
of this quality see made in a lab it's
going to cost you five or six times that
it also comes with Canon's professional
print and layout software which I always
use because it makes it just so easy to
print so in Lightroom we select the
image go to file plug-in extras and
select Canon professional print and
layout that opens up and as you can see
we're using prolus to paper you can make
borderless prints as well when using
glossy photo papers but that doesn't
work for this image so we're going to
use A2 if I printed this now it would
look amazing but you can see because
it's a 16x9 image the border and above
and below is pretty big I could trim it
down and you'd end up with something a
bit like this print here which I still
think looks great but today I want to
make our print even bigger so I'm going
to do is use a roll paper and input
system size so if we go to paper size
and select roll 16x9 this is a custom
size I've made which is 420 mil by 800
mil so let's just select that and you
can see it adjusts in the window but
then what we're gonna do is come down to
the size slider and drag that up on the
height to fill the page all the way up
to 400 millimeters that's going to leave
a nice little border on the top and
bottom and a bit of space each side
which will trim down to size once it's
printed since I bought the Canon Pro
1000 I've never looked back so if you
hit the link down below then check it
out or if you're just getting started
with printing you could also take a look
at the Canon Pro 300 in this video here
where I also compare it to the Pro 1000
right now for the exciting bits and will
hit print
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so the print is coming out as you can
see there and it's just always such an
exciting time it's just looking
fantastic I think
and you're all very close don't wanna
drop it
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right so here it is and you see that I
am really really happy with it and it
does feel like a photograph with a lot
of energy which is what I was going for
I love the size I love the quality I
love the detail and I could quite
happily just put this up on my wall and
stop there but it is nice to make a
little bit of money from your
photography it's a bit too big for this
to the screen I think isn't it so I'm
gonna put that down out of the way for a
second yeah it is nice to make a bit of
money from your photography so I want to
sell it one of the biggest questions I
get asked the most about selling prints
is how do we price our work this isn't
always easy but we can simplify it from
the beginning of it by looking at the
numbers and particularly our expenses so
let's go through it for this image it's
a big print so starting off with the ink
that comes in at one pound forty the
paper is on a roll so I'm estimating
that to cost about eight pounds then you
should factor in your time as an expense
if this was a commissioned commercial
shoot I would also include the time it
took to actually travel to the Lake
District and make the image in the field
but in this case I was going there
anyway so I'm only going to factor in
the time it's taken to make the print
itself which is about an hour although
some prints can take a lot longer my
currently hourly rate is around 70
pounds yours may be different but let's
add that in as well next we have the use
of the printer itself so I set this
based on how many prints I need to sell
to recoup the cost of the printer your
number may be different but I want to
recoup the cost of the printer after
selling 50 prints so with the cost of
the Pro 1000 today this comes out at 20
pounds per print then we want to pay for
the electricity I set that at one pound
per print the actual cost of the power
for this is way less than that but I
don't want to deal with pennies
packaging we're gonna discuss shortly
that's about three pounds per tube and
then we finish with wastage of about 10
pounds because printing is a bit of an
art form in itself and it's unlikely
that you'll get things like the color
bang on first time so this covers the
extra cost of wasted paper and things
like that so the total expense per print
is coming out at 113 pounds and 40 Pence
so if I sell it for anything less than
that I'm basically making a loss or at
least my time would be better spent
elsewhere once we've figured out that
minimum price though we want to make
some profit usually this is a bit
trickier to figure out because it
depends on who you are and what your
value is what a lot of photographers do
including me is at a level of scarcity
and by making a printed limited edition
so for example I'm going to limit this
Photograph to just 10 prints so when all
of them have sold I won't produce any
more with modern printing though this is
a slightly flawed system because it's
based on Trust basically I'm promising I
won't make any more this one as well is
also going to be part of my Continuum
series which means it's also limited by
time so it'll only be available until
the end of January or until 10 cell
whichever comes first but if you're not
sure what profit to add a very fair
system is just a double your expenses
which is what I'm going to do for this
print here so double 11340 is 226.80 and
then let's round that up to 230 for the
sake of simplicity so this big print is
available to be shipped around the world
for 230 pounds which I don't think is
too bad
[Music]
actually selling prints is the bit a lot
of people find the hardest I I've made
videos about this before but first let's
ask the question have you ever bought a
photographic Prince would you ever buy a
photographic print yes you might want to
print your own work and put that up on
the wall but as a lover of Photography
if you're not willing to buy someone
else's print how can you expect anyone
to buy yours my latest is this one from
Verity Milligan which I got myself as a
Christmas present and I just absolutely
love it I mean what you could do is just
add in an extra print buying expense
into the price of your prints so every
10 that you sell you buy one I think
that would create a very healthy and
sustainable economy around buying and
selling prints anyway it's just it's a
question I wanted to put out there
because I think it's worth considering
before you start selling them I'm not
going to go into the depth of sales and
marketing in this video but there's a
couple of important things to consider
or understand firstly is supply and
demand a quick browse around the
internet will reveal that the world is
full of thousands if not millions of
absolutely stunning landscape images the
supply is off the charts and truthfully
the demand is low so this drives the
price right into the floor there is
still some demand there though but if
you think a great image alone is going
to be enough to drive a sale then
unfortunately you are mistaken what's
required is some kind of unique selling
point photographs of a local area always
work well but the main ingredient is you
what are you as the photographer
bringing to the table the most important
thing in marketing is attention you can
either get this by organically growing
an audience for your work or
alternatively you can pay for it in the
form of adverts both can work neither
are easy it's not just about having a
massive following though what's more
important is the type of attention you
have it's your core audience that are
likely the ones who are going to sustain
you and these people are special I know
some of you are watching now that make
all of this possible and it's actually
really hard to express just how grateful
I am your audience definitely doesn't
need to be that big either especially if
it's something like a bunch of rich
people or celebrities if you move in
these circles you might even be able to
sustain yourself with very high priced
work that you sell just a few times a
year although this is unlikely because
the supply and demand is still working
against you do check out my other video
on this but don't be afraid to get out
there and generate a buzz around you and
your work it may feel fun money at first
and you may attract some jealousy from
others but if that happens it means
you're doing something right
[Music]
well congratulations you've just sold
your first print and I promise you it's
an amazing feeling but it's then often
followed by nerves of having to produce
pack and ship your beautiful prints I'm
just gonna make this easy for you and
tell you exactly what I do so you can
just pick and choose the bits you like
the easiest way by far is to roll the
print into a tube it's secure safe and
easier to ship and I'll show you that in
a second but you might want also to Flat
pack your prints to give it that more
premium feel my flat pack prints are
shipped in an A2 art box which just adds
a whole it adds to the whole event of
opening it up and it also means you
don't have to roll the print and get it
curled up I then use a nice skinny box
to ship it although that is gonna be
much more expensive so let's pack this
print and having a nice clean workspace
is a good start and I just lay my print
down onto some acid-free crepe paper I
like this Black Version because it just
looks cool and then just carefully sort
of roll it up this gets easier the more
you do it and then just place it into
your tube I just tape up the ends and
then it's ready to go it's nice to put
your branding on there and then here in
the UK I use Royal Mail click and drop
for the shipping it connects to my
website it pulls the orders in so I
don't have to write any names and
addresses down I select the service pay
for it and then print out the label here
is that just a case of taking it to the
post office or the depot and your
beautiful print makes the last stage of
its Adventure before reaching its final
destination so the question is now where
is this print going to end up hit the
link down below to check it out also
have a look at the Canon printers as
well give them some love for sponsoring
this Channel and I'll see you on another
video very very soon
foreign
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