Ask the Experts: outtakes

Q. Occasionally I have a client who asks to have all outtakes included with their package. I am contemplating adding the following clause to my contract: “Studio reserves the right to edit all photographs and deliver only edited photographs to the client. Any other photographs are considered outtakes and are not included in the contract.” Is there a better way to phrase this?

A. It’s a question we get asked frequently: Can we have all the pictures you took? It’s important to have a statement in your contract about what’s included in terms of the images as well as the type of editing. This is the statement I have in my contract to cover both topics:

“Quality standards of images: Final images, which are chosen by Carrie Wildes Photography, are edited and delivered to the client. All final images are professionally edited by our graphic designer, which includes color correction, cropping, simple facial retouching, and artistic effects such as black/white. Extensive retouching such as, but not limited to, significant acne, tan lines, sunglass glare, removal of people or backgrounds, teeth whitening, slenderizing, eyeglass glare, or swapping of heads is significantly labor intensive and charged on a per image basis.”

Do all clients read the contract? No. It’s necessary to explain what you include and have a good response when clients ask you that question.

Carrie Wildes, Cr.Photog., CPP, Carrie Wildes Photography Art & Design