A Guide to Purchasing the Digital Negatives of Your Wedding Pictures

Many photographers are offering the option of purchasing the digital negatives for your wedding images. There are many things to consider when deciding what photographer you will be using and the option of owning your images offers more to think about. There are two things to keep in mind about digital negative. The first is under what conditions do you get the images and what may be done with them. The second thing is whether or not you will do anything with them. These are questions you must answer before deciding how important it is whether you will be able to purchase the digital negatives of your wedding.

What are the conditions?
Each photographer will have a different way of handling the sale of digital images. First you will need to find out if the photographer you like even offers them. If they do you will, of course, want to find out how much they are to purchase and whether or not you can have them immediately. Many photographers will hold the images for one to five years. This gives them the opportunity to sell high quality prints that they print themselves or from a lab they work closely with.

Another important thing to ask is what format your images will be in and whether or not they will be edited. Some times a photographer will just hand over the raw images including those that didn't turn out. This is fine if you know how to use photo editing software and have the time and patience to edit your images yourself. Some photographers will offer their images fully edited and ready to be printed. Often they will charge more for this. You will also want to find out if the images will be big enough to print enlargements. Some photographers will sell you files big enough to be printed up to 4x6 and then ask you to purchase larger prints from them. Find out all the details upfront so you are not disappointed.

Will you print your pictures?
Before digital cameras were popular people would develop their film and look at their pictures once and then store them in a shoebox never to be seen again. The equivalent scenario now is to take your pictures and then store them in a file on your computer. Many images never get printed and are forgotten about. If you choose not to purchase prints from your photographer make sure that you get them printed yourself. However, don't let your prints just sit in a shoebox. Make sure you buy an album and put your images in it. Photography is one of the more expensive services you will pay for when getting married. Don't let all that money go to waste by not enjoying your pictures. If you don't think you will take the time to print your images and put them in an album then you will want to hire a full service photographer and have them do it for you.

By purchasing the high resolution copies of your you will have the images on hand to do what you want with them. Years later your mother may want copies for her scrapbook and you will be able to print them for her. Make sure once you get your disk of images that you back them up and save them somewhere else in case something happens to the originals. It is also a good idea to make a copy to store somewhere else in case of a fire or theft. You can use a safety deposit box or even just store a copy at a parent or sibling's house.

Purchasing your digital negatives is a good idea. Understand your photographer's terms and also make sure you do something with your images so they don't just sit forgotten on a disk somewhere.