Professional Prints vs. Other Prints

So…you invested your time and money getting your portraits done with a professional photographer…no, what? Well, in this day and age, the most popular option would be to purchase digital images so you can print your photos yourself and share them with your friends and family on social media. Makes sense, right? You would rather spend the time to save money by going to a one-hour studio and have the print to hang on your wall that night! We’ve all done it (myself included.)

In January 2013, I found out I was pregnant and wanted to get our Family Portraits done in Orange County. Once I invested our time and money with a professional photographer, I was so excited to get our digital images from the session. Shortly did I find out that that was not the best choice. Once I received our digital images from our photographer, I went to Target to get them printed. I was so excited; I purchased frames as I went down the aisle, awaiting my new family photographs!

As I went to pick them up, I just loved our pictures. A few weeks had passed when I headed back home, and I noticed a blog that a photographer had written. It was a post done compared to a professional lab vs. a local lab (Walmart, CVS, Target, Costco, etc.). I thought to myself, “That can’t be true! My photographs hanging on my wall are gorgeous! They don’t look like that.

One of the photographers’ blog said that she encourages her clients to go through her for prints because it will resemble what they see on the screen, and the color will be more accurate. So, I decided I wanted to test this theory. I went to the digital files that my photographer had created for me and then pulled out my pictures hanging on my walls. I was appalled. Here I had spent $xxx and my time to get my photographs done, and now they look nothing like how they looked on the screen. As I held up my target print and compared it to the digital file on the screen, the target print looked: Too saturated, extremely sharpened to the point where it looked like a pencil drawing, and the exposure was a little brighter. I had paid a photographer to not only document my session but to edit the photographs, and while she did a fantastic job, I screwed them up by getting them printed. It was no way to showcase my family portraits, and I took them down immediately.

My eyes opened, and I began to realize that I can’t do this to my Clients. They deserve the very best. So, I submitted my work to EVERY professional photography lab I could think of, received samples of my work, and chose the professional printing lab that creates my work exactly how my Clients will see it on the computer.

Sure enough, I ordered my new prints through my new professional printing lab and LOVE them! :)

From that experience, I’ve begun offering professional prints to my Clients. I’ve found that they love this new service. Not only do these moms that come to me for their family portraits not have to go to the store to get them printed, but they can use that time to spend time with their families. After all, to my family, time is one of the most important things. So now we can offer this additional service, and hand-deliver them to our Clients doorstep.

Here’s how our new process works:

1. Consultation – We chat about details, locations, creative ideas, pricing & what to wear.

2. Your Session – It’s at your choice of location, in O.C. or Boise, Idaho, and we take everything we discussed at the consultation and put it into action

3. Your Premiere – This will be the first time you have the chance to view your gorgeous portraits. You will have the opportunity for either Jeremiah or myself to come to your home, and with some pretty amazing software, we can show you exactly what the images from YOUR SESSION will look like on YOUR WALLS. It takes a few minutes, but we can help you create a custom wall gallery or help you decide on which size suits your wall the best.

4. Delivery – Once you select the prints and products you’d like to order at your premiere, we do a little more editing, get them ready for print, and send them off. Once they arrive back, we inspect them to make sure everything is up to par, and then we schedule a time that fits your schedule, drop off your prints and products to you at your home!

We find that it saves you time and stress. We handle it all from the first step. The only things you do are show up to the consultation, show up to the session, and then select your images when the time is right. They’ll be delivered to you. All of our prints are designed to last a lifetime. They’re mounted, color coated, UV protected, and include a ton of other complimentary things. When choosing Kincannon Photography, you’re choosing an Orange County Family Photography studio that cares about your session’s outcome and is willing to do their very best to ensure that your prints last a lifetime.

After all, what happens with the disc of images breaks or becomes the “NEW” Floppy Disc. What would happen if all you had left to access your grandparents’ portraits was a Floppy Disc? Nowadays, the new generation may not even know what a Floppy disc is, let alone pull data off it. At Kincannon Photography, we prevent that, and we do all the work!

I hope this answers many questions we get asked and answers what it means for Kincannon Photography to be a Full-Service Studio.