This is a question we sometimes get from our clients, both on the commercial or life events side of our business.
The short answer is: sometimes ‘no’, and sometimes, ‘kind of’.
The first thing to agree on is, what are raw files?
To a photographer or videographer, the raw files are the source files from which the images are generated. It is the raw data from our digital cameras, the 1s and 0s and voltage levels that define the intensity and colour of a pixel on the sensor. That data needs specialized software to interpret and turn into usable images.
These are like the sketches an artists makes, the picture that a painter uses to inspire their painting and the first layers of paint, or the rehearsals and practice that a musician does to perform their piece well. It is unfinished work, and most artists don’t want unfinished work to be seen by the outside world.
What happens to raw files in the photographers workshop?
Photographers load the raw files into a specialized photography software. There are a bunch of them – what we use is Adobe Lightroom – but other photographers might use something else. A professional photographer will have really good systems to sort, filter, and adjust all the images for you to review in one way or another. This can take a while – for us it is about 2h of work for every shooter hour shot, and that will vary by photographer – and for someone who’s not familiar with the tools, much much longer.
Once the adjustments are made, each file has a little extra information file that gets associated with it, called a sidecar, that tells the software what adjustments were made to it. The data from the raw file is then translated and exported by the software, with the adjustments, into files that are more generally viewable by lots of different software, usually jpeg. That is what you will probably see.
Next, a large part of the art of photography is making prints, retouching the images to make them print-ready, and then generating those prints. Photographers often take pride in this part of the process. Photoshopping is an essential part of creating a piece of art – and has been since the dawn of photography.
Ultimately, this piece of art is what your photographer wants you to see on your wall.
The answer
Most photographers that I know would not give these untouched bits of data to their client, AS IS, for the following reasons:
- Most people don’t have the software to see them
- They don’t want the world to see unfinished work
- It is a lot of work to fix them up, and they don’t want you to have to do that when they are, in most cases, much faster at it.
- It is their intellectual property
- They probably want to present you the fully finished pieces of art for you to display on your walls
It is possible to overcome these and get at least some of the raw files, if:
- You have the software and knowledge to use the raw files
- They would probably only give you a culled set – not every image. Not everything needs to be seen by you – lots of images are just sketches, or didn’t work out for some reason.
- They would probably give you the sidecars for each image so that you see their vision of the rough edit
- They would probably charge you a (sometimes) hefty fee, to give up their intellectual property and the chance to create fully finished pieces of art for you. How much that is depends on the photographer.
What do we do?
We will sometimes provide the raw files, with their sidecars, and culled down to the usable and not overly repetitive shots, with the other conditions above. How much we charge for the raw files will depend on the type and length of shoot that it was, anywhere from $600 to $1600, which includes the medium on which the files are given to you (small hard drive or large USB key).