We’ve been getting LOTS of calls lately from recently married couples that went with a weekend warrior shoot and burn style photographer. They have the digital files, but nothing else. One of these brides asked if we could create one of our art books with her images, since she owned the copyright. I asked her to bring me the files and I would take a look. After looking at the files, I gave her my honest opinion. There were several issues.
#1 The detail in her dress was blown out resulting in areas on her dress that had a bluish cast and then areas of no detail where it was paper white. This cannot be corrected using the JPEGS she had access to. Proper exposure is calculated using a light meter (Something most weekend warriors do not even own.) The extreme contrast of a wedding day (the white of the dress and the black of the tuxedo) requires perfect exposure to capture all the detail in a JPEG. Adjusting the exposure later deteriorates the quality of the JPEG. Anytime you adjust a JPEG and then save the adjustment you are deteriorating image quality.
#2 The reception images were underexposed. We can try to tweak these too, but making changes to the JPEGS means lost quality. As you lighten up areas, you see more grain and noise.
#3 The top two problems could have been completely fixed if the images had been captured in RAW format. This is a format that professionals use to ensure the BEST possible result from your images. The RAW format requires lots of extra cards for capture, lots of extra hard disk space on your computer, and lots of extra work processing the images after the wedding. Knowing how critically important these images are to our brides and their families, it just makes sense to go through the extra work and jump the extra hurdles to put the best product out there.
#4 No retouching or artistic effects had been done to any of the images. I know that in our studio the photography the day of the wedding is a very small part of the finished product. We have about a 40 hour work week after the wedding, editing, color correcting, processing, retouching, doing some creative art effects, and then finally creating the one of a kind album design that our brides love so much. Nothing had been done to these files, her dark eye circles from the lack of sleep the night before, showed in every image. For us, this is unacceptable. But lazy photographers who don’t know any better are putting out this kind of work and calling it professional.
#5 The Art Books that she loved so much is a huge expense for photographers, the cost including design time, prints from our professional lab, and then a handmade custom book from our company in California cost $1000-1500. Which is why the shoot and burn photogs don’t offer them in their packages.
So long story short, I had to call her back and tell her no, we couldn’t take her files and create a precious heirloom of her wedding day that we could be proud of. She was heartbroken. She learned a hard lesson that day, like everything else in life, you get what you paid for.
I’ve been really trying to do something unique for each couple, it gives me a chance to grow as a photographer and to be outside “Playing.” Creating images is the best part of my career! 
