Let me start with two very public disclosures – 1) I received a 24×36 Acrylic print of one of my own images from Pictage to help in this review and 2) I simply love it.

Here is the image I submitted to Pictage (I shot this at The Westin Boston Waterfront, when I worked with Nabil Kapasi):

I am sure you are wondering why I feel so passionately about this one product. I recall hearing a photographer at Mystic Seminars say that if you want to stand out in the crowd, you've got to offer unique products to your clients. Well, let me tell you, these Acrylic prints will definitely be something I offer to my clients moving forward because the sample I received is STUNNING.

The combination of extremely clear and flawless elements and ultra smooth (transparent) finish sets these materials apart from more common Acrylic materials. The material, I am told, is extremely hard and is therefore difficult to scratch. (but not impossible). The edges are flame polished (melted if you will), to a smooth, safe, finish. It may take some knocks but why experiment, eh?

From Pictage's CEO, Jim Collins:

“The print affixed to the acrylic panel is not a silver halide photographic print. It is a giclee’ print quite similar to a fine art print. (just on different paper). As you are probably already aware, this process yields a print that carries intense colors, blacks and contrasts and this is responsible for some of the increase in detail that you can see in the print.

The acrylic serves two purposes. I guess you could say it’s not just a pretty face. The first purpose is obvious. Sex appeal. This is a very cool way to package a keepsake.  The second purpose may also be obvious to photographers, but I’m finding that this isn’t necessarily the case. In much the same fashion as a glass globe intensifies the output of a candle the acrylic actually intensifies the brightness of the print. The clear surface gathers light. This is one of the reasons why you really can’t take your eyes off of your new acrylic. That effect almost makes you want to study every detail in greater degrees.”  

No doubt this is a premium product and it comes at what I would consider a very respectable wholesale starting price that Pictage has brokered for wedding and portrait photographers.

Acrylic pricing for photographers starts at $84.50 for a 12X18 (the smallest available size), and climbs to about $750 for a 40X60. Interestingly, due to the giclee’ process, images can be printed at significantly larger sizes than traditional photographic prints, so stunning clarity even at Wall Covering size is possible. This will be evident in the two 40X60 panels Pictage will have on display at PartnerCon. Square and panorama formats will also available.

Photographers interested in these Acrylic prints will have to become a member of Pictage.

These prints become available first to photographers via their wholesale catalogs and Direct Order Tool or DOT, and then to consumers via photographer opt in. Most photographers who have an account with Pictage would do well to offer these prints to their clients because I know they will love them.

The Acrylic panel I received has a “museum” or “gallery” mount, with aluminum studs. See the image below. The other hanging option will be a recessed standout frame. Personally, I prefer the museum mount due to its look and feel.

I was going to post a video review of this product, including clips of me opening the box and picking my jaw off the ground when I saw how beautiful this print looks. I can't wait to install it on my home studio wall and show it off to my wedding clients. The Acrylic panel print from Pictage will complement my other product offerings like hand-made albums and museum quality canvases from the finest vendors in the world. And Pictage, I am told has other very interesting products launching soon. So, stay tuned and hopefully I'll get to review them as well!

Tell me below what marquee product or service you offer to stand out in the crowd? Has it helped your business? How?

This is a guest post by Andrew “Fundy” Funderburg, the creator of the Fundy Album Builder and Fundy Album Proofer. Please check out the free trials available at http://www.fundysos.com. If you were looking to design albums yourselves, I highly recommend Fundy's products.

I've seen many forum posts on pricing prints for photographers and they usually all end badly. There are those that defend the high price points due to labor, business costs and what the market will bear. And those defending the low end price points, focus on auto-fulfillment, and what the market is willing to pay.

So who's right? Well the answer is simple, both price points are correct?

How can this be? Well, ‘correct' pricing is based only on two things.

1. What the market is willing to pay for something.
2. That a price is profitable according to retail pricing rules.

Let's take a closer look. It's pretty easy to find out if people are willing to pay a certain price for something. You simply throw it out there in the marketplace and if people pay money for it, then it is a viable price. You can move the price point up and down. When it goes down, more people buy it, when it goes up fewer people buy it. Pretty soon, you find the happy price point, quite a few buyers at a profitable price point.

What is profitable? Well, according to the Professional Photographers Association of America, you'll want to have at least a 35% cost of goods mark up to be profitable – that is, pay your bills, run a profit and grow your business. A 35% cost of goods, simply means that for every $1.00 you make, it costs you 0.35¢. If you sell ice cream on the street corner, and you buy it for 0.35¢ and sell it for $1.00, then you have a 35% cost of goods.

To get retail pricing of goods, simply take your costs and divide by the percentage (35%=0.35). So, if something costs you $10 to create for your client:

$10 ÷ 0.35 = $28.50

We'll use this simple formula to prove both arguments are correct. We did this recently in a speaking engagement we had at ProDPI headquarters. We were using our new pricing program, Prosper™ during the demonstration.

Here in our settings, we have our cost of goods set at 25%, a good COG for an established photographer. We've also estimated our hourly rate in our studio for the work we do.

Now, let's look at two scenarios. The first being a photographer who is selling art prints for a portrait sitting or of the bride and groom in a posed shot. This is a special order, the photographer is going to retouch the print, have it shipped to the studio and the bride or groom (probably the bride) are going to come in and pick it up.

As you can see we've calculated that we spend 15 min. finding, opening and retouching the image. We've set aside 10 minutes contact time with the client on the phone and 10 minutes time meeting the client in the studio to chat and $5 for shipping to our studio. Prosper™ has done the math for us, and calculated all of our costs and divided by 0.25. The total is $57. I'm going to just round that off to $60. So, you can see that with this business scenario, $60 for a 4×6 is the proper amount. And if the photographer educates the client about the quality of the print, it should sell.

As you can see, quite a bit has changed here. In this scenario, we've used numbers for an auto-fulfillment. This photographer shoots the wedding, does minimal batch retouching with an action and uploads the whole wedding for anyone to buy. After that, they are done. We've added the price of the print to the calculation and allotted 5 minutes for a quick call or email if the client asks about the delivery of the print. As you can see, Prosper™ has done the math for us and come out to $7 for a retail price on this print. I've rounded down to $6 for the purpose of this discussion.

So, as you can see, depending on how your run your business, $6 or $60 can be the right price for a 4×6 print. It all depends on how much work you are putting into the final product. The only mistake you can make is creating a fine art print and pricing it like an automated fulfillment print.

The simple matter of fact is, if you know your cost of goods then calculating your pricing is easy Junior High School math.

Prosper™ is a product of Fundy Software. You can find out more here about a free trial and the limited time pricing special happening right now.