Greetings from a long time lurker and first time poster at this forum. I recognize many of you who have migrated here from another forum.
Yesterday I was confronted by a troubling request. I was asked upfront to deliver RAW files from an upcomming commercial shoot to an ad agency for a client. java script:emoticon(':angry:') Incidentally, I have a long-running relationship with both and get considerable work from both.
I expressed concern to them for reasons you can imagine: artistic integrity (the desire to see the whole vision through and provide the best image I can); the fact that I'm calibrated and they're not; this will take up more of your designers time than you think; my retouching is better than your designers and is something the client has come to enjoy (and expect); it's part of my business model (production costs).
After all that and more, they come back with, "OK.....yeah....well while we respect all that, it all boils down to the client not wanting to have to wait around for an image from a past job when the chips are down. They usually need it yesterday. It's not perfect, but this is the way things are heading...." yadda yadda yadda.....
Finally, they announce to me that the other photographer that this client likes to shoot with has no problem with this RAW file delivery protocol. In fact he prefers it.
So does agreeing to this with one client set a dangerous president? Has anyone come up against this scenario yet? Of course, IF one were to agree, there would have to be some sort of per-image turnover fee to compensate for production costs lost.