What are the more popular print sizes and paper types you sell?

[waple]

I'm setting up my store and don't want to have every single size they make prints in as options. Main reason is because I figure the more choices they have to make, the less likely I'll make the sale. Is this a good theory?

I have three different markets: Portraiture and Events (everything but wedding), Art Prints (landscapces, scenic, etc), and Commercial.

Commercial will be 99% digital download so these are out of the conversation.

I'm not sure if the first two categories have the same print market so I separated them. I'd guess that most portrait and event photos would fall in the 4x6, 5x6, 8x10 and wallets range. But I'm sure some would want larger prints to go over their mantle or whatnot, so I do want to keep some options there.

Art prints, I'd guess, would be more of the larger sizes, but would also have small options as well.

Also, I have 4 options for paper, well, 5 if you count canvas (I'm using Exposure Manager by the way): Matte, Luster, Glossy and Metalic. Metalic prints are listed separately in the price sheet. I honestly couldn't tell the difference in their Matte and Luster finishes. I thought Matte would have been almost like printing on drawing paper, but it's not. So I was considering only having Glossy and Luster as options. Is this a good idea or do you find a lot of folks would also want Matte? I'm just trying to keep things simpler.

Thanks for any advice.

[Songman45]

For Portraits, lustre similar to the old "E" surface Kodak paper is popular. We used it for our samples not under glass just becuase of the reflectance. Popular sizes remain as they have been for years, the ones ready made frames are available for. 5X7, 8X10, 11X14 and 16X20. Some people still like the oddball sizes and use mattes to bring them up to standard size. I hate it that the 35mm one hour lab made 4X6 a standard size. 4X5's are proportional to 8X10s when cropped and well they are economical when printing since they fit so well on 8X10 paper. I'd still offer 4X5's and if ppl challange that they aren't as "big" I'd enlighten them about the crop. Upon insistance I'd print them and loose the trimmed paper. I'd save the canvas finish for larger wall prints 16X20, 20X24 and 30X40.

We started using high gloss paper for sports. Its high contrast and has been well accepted for that. We print some odd sizes other than 4X5 5X7 8X10 11X14 11X17 and 13X19. Unless it is a really special shot, I reccommend customers stick with traditional sizes; custom framing can be costly.

Your art prints will almost always be accepted on high gloss finishes. At least my experience in art photo compititions leads me to that opinion.

Best of luck in your sales endeavors.

[waple]

Thanks again for the great info, Songman. I can't believe no one else has had a reply here

[Songman45]

Youre welcome. I figured this was a safe place to post a reply. Since you asked about large prints and not large reflectors. Hope you got some ideas out of all that.

[Unkl Buck]

waple,
I probably sell 5x7's the most, followed closely by 8x10s. Of course, this is on the portrait side. On the commercial side, they don't order prints. They order the images on a disc.

[hotrod4x5]

Who fulfills exposure manager's orders?

[Retronaut]

You can do it yourself. However, I would strongly advise against using it for portraits; it's really only meant for events and you are probably losing an awful lot of money involving it in portrait sales.

I see no need to bother with oddball sizes like 5X7, 8X10, 11X14 and 16X20 for professional portraiture unless it suits your particular image. At least you can get full-frame prints easily enough, including 4x6 which is cheap as chips and great for wedding boxfuls.

[hotrod4x5]

Originally Posted by Retronaut

You can do it yourself. However, I would strongly advise against using it for portraits; it's really only meant for events and you are probably losing an awful lot of money involving it in portrait sales.

I see no need to bother with oddball sizes like 5X7, 8X10, 11X14 and 16X20 for professional portraiture unless it suits your particular image. At least you can get full-frame prints easily enough, including 4x6 which is cheap as chips and great for wedding boxfuls.

Your post is confusing to me. Those sizes aren't oddball, they are standard. Also, at the beginning you say, "it's only meant for events" What is only meant for events?

[Retronaut]

ExposureManager, et al, are really only made for events. You'd lose a lot of money using them for portrait proofing.

I didn't know you had those as standard sizes. Are you saying you are forced to crop all your images because in your area your "standard" sizes don't match your uncropped image?

In my country you can get 4x6, 5x7, 6x8, 6x9, 8x10, 8x12, 10x12 and 10x15 inches from any lab in a matter of minutes, and bigger ones after about a week or so. I would call A2 standard if I had to, as it's the commonest portrait size for me. Obviously I seldom have any need for "oddball" sizes which don't match my photographs, unless I want to crop them that way. In that case, I can trim them accordingly or order them to the nearest paper size, such as 16x20. Frames are whatever size I order, which I am sure is the same for you.

[Songman45]

Just goes to show us that in a global community not all standards are standard.

[waple]

Originally Posted by Retronaut

ExposureManager, et al, are really only made for events. You'd lose a lot of money using them for portrait proofing.

Why do you think this? What can't you do for portraits or fine art photography that you can do for events?

[hotrod4x5]

Originally Posted by waple

Why do you think this? What can't you do for portraits or fine art photography that you can do for events?

I'm guessing he is referring to an in studio review session, where you can do a more direct sales approach, vs the client looking at the photos online for days and days and losing the excitement over time.

[Retronaut]

You can make the proofs available for, say, a couple of hours for your customers to make their purchases but so much of the impact is lost when proofing online. They are viewing in a less than ideal environment, and you are not there to be involved, and also the experience is totally detached from what you offered them during the shoot (a personal experience in an environment that cost money).

Let's say you charge $1000 for a portrait. How on Earth can your customers make sense of that when they are sitting in their own environment, viewing an image that literally cost nothing to view, and is going to cost maybe $50 to print and frame?

I think it is far easier for people to understand the cost or value of something if they have to pay that to get it, to make it happen. I do a lot of real estate photography and visit several new homes every week before I am commissioned to photograph them. I could easily bring my camera and take photos when I first, but that would destroy the understanding of what it cost to get those photographs taken.

[hotrod4x5]

Originally Posted by Retronaut

You can make the proofs available for, say, a couple of hours for your customers to make their purchases but so much of the impact is lost when proofing online. They are viewing in a less than ideal environment.

This is SO right! My friend has an HP computer with Vista, it came with a 15 inch LCD monitor. Overall, seems like a good machine. BUT photos look really bad on it. I don't know if her kids messed with the settings, or it is just an el cheapo monitor, but I would hate for a client not to like their pics because of a crappy monitor.

[waple]

Yeah, that is a good point.