What A RAW Image Is And Why My Photographer Won’t Give It To Me

SO! You’re meeting with potential wedding photographers and trying to find the best fit. One of your burning questions is ‘“Will I be receiving the raw images as well as edited photos?” Let me break down why the answer will most likely be “no” (and why you probably don’t want them anyway!)

Let’s get into it.

When photos are shot on film, a negative is created, and the photos have to be developed and processed with chemicals in a darkroom. Digital cameras today imitate that process, so RAW photos are essentially a digital negative of a photo. It’s an unprocessed file that is not a final product on its own.

The RAW photos are only there to allow me to process your digital images using my unique Kelsey Albright style and color theory. One of the biggest differentiators between photographers is how they process the digital negatives (or RAW images), and what they do to bring them to life as a final product.

That’s why I would never give raw images out, they’re an unfinished product that really has no value on their own, and the way I process them is my intellectual property.

That being said, I want to encourage you to know that my couples will get what I call every single usable image. Withholding the RAW files does NOT mean I’m withholding images. The only images that I would not give you are ones that are not up to my standard and quality as a wedding photographer. For example, photos with eyes closed, photos that are blurry/not perfectly sharp, and photos that do not align with the highest quality that I want to provide my clients. I process every other photo, then turn them into high resolution jpeg’s, which you can blow up super big without losing quality.

In the same way that people used to choose specific film stocks based on their color, you can now choose a wedding photographer you really connect with and that processes images in a style that you’re drawn to! I hope this helps, friend, on your journey to finding the perfect wedding photographer. Happy googling!

xo-
Kelsey