All day, every day…..
I see a post or see a Tik Tok about someone complaining that their photographer refuses to give them their Raw files and/or want to charge them a lot of money for them.
I d like to shed some light on this.
First off, most people do not understand what a Raw file actually is. In their minds they think it’s an unedited JPEG file but nope….that’s not it.
A RAW is the file that the camera creates when the shutter button is pressed. It has all the uncompressed and unprocessed data. They are very large, have odd looking extensions, and take up a lot of computer space. To open them, you need photo editing software–like real legit photo editing software.
These RAWS are the original files and photographers own the copyright to their images. When people ask for RAWS they are asking for our original files. If we give them away, thats it, they are gone from us. We could make a copy of it but it still would not be the original. Picture this: A painter paints an original painting. He then has copies of that painting made. Asking the photographer for the RAW is kinda like asking that painter to give them his original painting instead of the reproduction–while only paying the lower reproduction price.
Obviously, that is why photographers do not easily hand them over. If you buy an original painting it is going to cost more then a reproduction because its an original right? The same for these files. RAW s capture the BEST data available so that the best edits can be done. So, if this is given to someone, they could do whatever they wanted to the photographers original file. Why do people think we should easily give this away?? It s like giving away our copyright.
A JPEG is a compressed smaller version of the RAW. A copy of the RAW is made and then is saved as a JPEG. The quality is not as good as the RAW but you can still get a decent edit out of it. When people ask for RAWS what they really want is an unedited JPEG. They just do not know the difference.
Unedited JPEG’s are not normally given to clients either. If a photographer gave an unedited file to a client and they did god awful edits to it ( IG filters etc), it could be a bad and false representation of the photographers brand. That could hurt their business. This is not something photographers take lightly.
How common is it to ask a professional chef for all the ingredients to one of his special dishes, so they can go home and make the dish themselves? Most people would never ever dream of doing this. Say, that the chef would sell it to them. The person goes home and cooks the dish to service to dinner guests. It turns out terrible. That could make the guests never want to patronize the Chef.
Pro togs, with lawyer drafted contracts, have a “no Raw and no unedited photo” clause. When clients sign the contract, they are agreeing to ALL the terms in that contract. ALWAYS READ THE CONTRACT!
I recently read a comment on social media that said something like this in a very pissy way, “when I get married, I am going to make sure that the photographers contract says I can have all my RAW images. I will not use one that doesn’t. I pay them and so they need to give me what I want, blah, blah blah.” This girl will have a very hard time finding a pro, with that kind of attitude and making that demand. Any pro, with integrity, will refuse to work with someone like that, no matter how badly they need the work.
Another comment, ” People talk about photographers to each other so if they don’t do this for me “blah blah blah blah blah, I will spread the word about them blah blah blah blah blah. First off, some of that kind of stuff can cross the lines into slander and could land them in legal trouble. Also, photographers also spread the word about bad clients. Again, no one wants to work with people like that, so we warn each other.
These people rattling off about this stuff are putting their ignorance on public display. The only person they are hurting is themselves. Bless their hearts.
So, there you go. I sincerely hope that this helps to explain things and gives a better understanding.
Thanks for reading!
Peace & love
Tiffany