How professional photographers print their images.
September 10th, 2024
Photo credit for displayed artwork: JS Portrait Studios
Even with the ease and options for selling digital downloads these days, there is something special and nostalgic about selling printed photographs. With quality prints and other physical photo products, you can give your clients a great experience, along with a memory or work of art they can hold and enjoy—and make more money in the process.
And here’s the good news: creating professional prints doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems. Once printing becomes part of your workflow, everything else falls into place.
In this article, we’ve outlined everything you need to know about offering high-quality prints to your clients using print labs.
What you stand to gain when you offer quality prints.
Asking why you should offer quality prints to your clients is like asking why a writer should choose the right words. Unlike a simple digital image, a well-crafted print is something your clients can feel, display, and cherish for years.
Interestingly, offering quality prints and photo products doesn’t just make your clients happy—it’s also a smart move for your business. Here’s what you stand to benefit:
1. Improving your clients’ experience with stunning, tangible memories.
We naturally feel more connected to things we can see and touch. It’s why we typically treasure a heartfelt handwritten letter over an email. Similarly, your clients are bound to connect more to their wedding pictures printed in a gallery wall collection of large canvases or in an album than they will when they are swiping through the images on a screen.
Pro tip: Printing these core life memories for your clients to hold helps preserve treasured memories, improving their experiences. And you know what they say: a happy client often leads to more referrals.
2. Increasing your profit margins by offering premium prints.
Whether we admit it or not, the major goal of every business is to make money. Many photographers, whether part-time or full-time, are spread thin managing the creative and business aspects of being a solopreneur. We all want to be successful–one way to make a difference is to look out for every avenue where we can earn more from our work.
Offering quality prints to your clients creates an opportunity for you to increase your earnings from each client. By preparing clients ahead of time and then offering both digital and a few specialty-appropriate options for printed photo products, your clients have an opportunity to buy more. Plus, the selling features in Zenfolio make it easy to factor in the expenses and profits of printing photos with integrated print labs.
3. Building a reputation for quality and professionalism.
One important factor in growing your photography business is building a solid reputation for quality and professionalism. Providing high-quality prints to your clients with consistency helps them build trust in your brand. Client trust manifests in online reviews and recommendations to their friends and family that will help expand your business.
Simplify your printing workflow with Zenfolio and our integrated labs.
Being a professional photographer can demand a lot more of your time than expected. One of the challenges many photographers face is being a one-person team handling the entire photography process–from the initial inquiry to shooting to delivery.
The good news is that there are ways to lighten your load and make your workflow smoother. From automatically creating client galleries after booking a session to client cart reminders, there’s a tool to help. Whether you’ve been offering only digital products or doing the order fulfillment yourself, you can access seamless printing solutions that include automated order fulfillment when you take advantage of Zenfolio’s partnership with integrated print labs.
Here’s a closer look at the professional print labs you can choose from within the Zenfolio platform, depending on your location:
- Miller’s Professional Imaging
- Miller’s School and Sports
- Mpix
- Bay Photo
- Fujifilm
- Technicare
- OneVision
- HC Pro
Visit our support center to see which integrated print labs are available in your country.
How integrated print labs make life easier for photographers.
Whether you are looking for ways to fit in more sessions, or simply trying to find more personal time with your family and friends, here’s how using the integrated printing labs in Zenfolio can make your work much easier.
It ensures consistent print quality.
Maintaining consistent print quality can be challenging when you manage every step of the process independently. Inconsistency can be caused by using different labs for printing orders (even when it is the same product), changes in paper or chemical temperatures when printing in a darkroom, or even running low on ink in your digital printer. On some days, your prints may turn out to be perfectly matched to your edits; on others, the results can be noticeably off, despite your best efforts.
With integrated print labs, you don’t have to second guess every print. These trusted labs use reliable methods and top-notch equipment to consistently deliver only the best services, ensuring every order meets the highest standards.
It gives you a variety of products to meet client preferences.
When it comes to meeting client needs and preferences, having a variety of options is always a smart move. The more choices they offer, the better your chances of finding the right collection of products to suit your client’s needs, whether you specialize in landscapes or sports events.
When you choose a print vendor from the Zenfolio site, you gain access to a wide selection of products. This means you can easily create one or more price lists that provide your clients with exactly what they’re looking for, whether it’s wallets or canvas prints.
Selling prints through your online client galleries.
What if we told you that selling prints can be as simple as a few clicks? With Zenfolio’s selling features and client galleries, it truly is. Once a pricelist is added to a gallery, your clients can easily place orders directly from your site. What is the best part? Setting up selling and creating a price list for your online shop is quick and effortless.
Steps to applying a price list to your client gallery for direct sales.
Ready to set up an online shop in your galleries to sell prints and photo products to your clients? You’re in the right place! We’ve outlined simple, easy-to-follow steps to help you get started.
- Create a price list.
- To assign the Price List through the Gallery, go to the Galleries section of your account.
- Select the Gallery from the My Library panel on the left-hand side of the page.
- With the Gallery open, click on Settings.
- Click on the Store tab.
- If the Store Status isn’t already enabled, click on the switch to enable the Store Status.
- With the Store Status enabled, you can now select a Price List to use. Choose your Price List from the dropdown menu.
Pro tip: After getting all the gallery settings and attached price list set up just right, turn the gallery into a Preset for that type of session. Now you can automatically apply these settings to every gallery like it!
Once the price list for your gallery is added, clients will be able to access your custom online store. And when an order is placed, the print lab you selected handles the shipping and fulfillment of orders on your behalf. They take care of everything from printing to delivery, so you don’t need to worry about packing or tracking.
How integrated labs help you save time.
Between managing pre-session client communications, shooting, editing, and managing orders, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Using integrated print labs, you can save valuable time and simplify your workflow. Here’s how.
Eliminating the need for processing orders manually streamlines your post gallery delivery workflow. Using an integrated print vendor takes away the stress of placing or processing each client’s order yourself–and even more importantly, the time spent on the “busy work” of packaging and shipping. The Zenfolio platform collects payments and manages orders, while the print lab handles everything from printing to shipping.
With one less administrative task on your to-do list, you can free up time for creativity, more client sessions, or to relax and avoid burnout.
Turn your images into income.
Sell your photos online from your own custom store. Set up is quick and your clients will enjoy a seamless shopping experience.
Using print labs to market your photography business.
Everyone uses social media to promote a photography business, but what if you could achieve the same results with print labs? When done strategically, you can successfully leverage your print labs to promote your photography business.
Check out some ways you can go about it:
Create samples and use them as marketing and upselling tools.
Creating sample products is a great way to showcase your best work to clients–and help motivate them to buy these stunning products for themselves. These sample products can be in the form of wall displays, photo albums, and even greeting cards.
Use quality prints as a means of word-of-mouth promotion.
One undeniable thing about us humans? We love to brag—some more than others. Whether it’s about something nice we got, someone special in our lives, or a big accomplishment we’re proud of, we can’t help but share it.
The same goes for great pictures. When you deliver stunning prints, your clients will want to show them off to friends and family, spreading the word about you in the process. In essence, free promotion!
Pro tip: Carry around a few physical prints you can show clients and even friends. There is nothing like seeing a professional product in person to get clients thinking about what they can create for their own homes.
How to optimize images for quality print results.
Your prints will only be as good as the images you provide. A good photo won’t magically transform into a stunning print if you don’t take the time to fine-tune it during editing. That being said, how the final print turns out also depends on the quality of your image file.
Here are some practical tips for optimizing your photos to ensure quality results.
1. Shoot in RAW format.
Shooting in RAW offers far more flexibility than JPEGs. While many beginners and casual photographers stick to JPEGs, RAW files give you greater control over adjusting and enhancing your images later. Think of it as having a blank canvas to make detailed adjustments without losing quality.
RAW captures all the detailed information from your camera’s sensor, preserving a huge amount of data without compression. This allows you more flexibility to edit your images to your liking, with a wider range of exposure, color, and overall details captured in the file.
Pro tip: Take a minute to double-check your camera’s settings and put it in RAW format–and then play around with it. You can always switch it back!
2. Pay attention to your exposure.
Think about your subject, the details in the location, and the amount of contrast between them. When the subject and setting have similar light, it is easier to find the right exposure to capture the details in both the highlights and the shadows.
In situations with higher contrast, such as a bright sky with your subject in open shade, you can set an exposure somewhere in between. This way you capture the details in both, and can adjust them during post-processing for the perfect exposure of both lighting situations.
3. Make sure you have the ideal minimum size for file exports.
Before sending images for printing, it’s crucial to ensure that your file size is appropriate. While this may seem obvious, many photographers inadvertently send files that are too small, leading to prints that appear pixelated or blurry, or simply don’t meet the minimum size requirements from the print lab—something neither you nor your clients want.
For professional printing, the generally recommended resolution for file export should be 300 PPI (pixels per inch), which is the typical standard for high-quality prints. We also recommend uploading the largest file size possible when you are offering large photo prints, canvases, metal, and acrylics. Files should be exported from your editing software as sRGB color profile as JPEGs, and we suggest a compression range of 8 or 9. You can learn more about file size recommendations and maximums in our content upload support guide.
To avoid print quality issues, the Zenfolio system will always confirm that your file meets the minimum size requirements for a product size before printing, and display an alert/error if it does not meet them. This extra step helps maintain the integrity of your work and ensures that your clients receive prints that meet their expectations.
Create lasting impressions with printed photographs.
When you deliver quality prints to your clients, you do more than just hand them some photos—you provide them with lasting memories they can cherish for years. With integrated print labs and Zenfolio selling and gallery features, the entire process becomes easier for you and more meaningful for your clients, enhancing both your workflow and profitability.
Ready to see the difference for yourself? Get started with Zenfolio’s integrated print labs today and experience the impact they have on your business and client satisfaction!
