Myrtle Beach Photography-Not A Tip But An Interesting Observation

Usually this is a place that I post tips for beginner photographers but I wanted to post an interesting observation that has really surprised me.  With all the new technology and do it yourself photography, this industry makes the public think that photography/graphics/printing are a do it yourself task.  The reason I am addressing this is something that has come to light especially this year.  Myrtle Beach Photography has had a record year for family beach portraits.  Our sales of photo packages has increased and sales of high resolution CD's have gone through the roof.  The idea is you can purchase the images on CD and print them yourself.  Back to my point.  With the increase of CD's, it would stand to reason that our sale of prints, enlargements would decrease.  On the contrary, our sales of prints and enlargements has increased as well.  What really surprises me is the massive number of customers who are calling us to have their images, that they own on CD, printed by our professional lab.  I will summarize some of their comments:  "I was calling to see if you could print image number (?) because when I took it to (insert corner photo lab) it just does not look as good as the ones Myrtle Beach Photography printed.  Our staff has know this for along time but now the public is beginning to realize that just because you have an excellent image, you will not get the same quality print unless it is being printed by a professional.  Our lab did a test.  We took an image and printed it at our lab.  We then took it to several different corner labs.  You can not imagine the difference in the same image printed at different locations.  So much goes into creating a quality print that we cannot even begin to explain here. 

My final point is, just because a photographer says that they will photograph your family and put all your images for you to use on a CD, do not expect the final output of all your images to be of professional quality.  Professional photography is not just taking a good picture.  So many other things go into your final beautiful family photograph.  Next time you consider having your family portrait done, there is more to consider than the price of images on a CD.