I charge a session fee but not licensing fees. Your images are yours to keep and you are free to make as many prints, albums, mugs or websites as you like with them at no additional cost. In legalese, I provide you with the full resolution processed digital files and an unlimited, non-commercial, non-transferable license to use and distribute those images. Which means, essentially, you can do anything you like with the pictures (e.g. make prints, post them to facebook etc) except re-sell them.
For what it’s worth, my personal favorite online print shops include Shutterfly and, for longer photo books, Blurb.
If you would prefer for me to create albums with your prints, I can do that too by arrangement.
When I refer to post processing, this is what I’m actually doing:
In other words: processing, quality control and due diligence. No one seems to believe me, but I usually spend two hours on “post” for every hour I spent taking the actual photos.
Occasionally someone asks me to forget the post processing and just give them the RAW files. That’s a bit like the Pope asking Michelangelo to make a sketch on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, ’cause he has a big box of Crayolas somewhere and he can fill in the blanks for himself later on… Post processing ensures a consistent level of quality to my output, so I insist on it and include it in the published fee as standard.
Other people seem to be living under the impression that now that Photoshop CS5 exists and James Cameron made Avatar, post processing should include such things as “making everything black and white except for my daughter’s red coat like in Schindler’s List“. I don’t generally do that; but, since you’ll have the full resolution files, someone else can do it for you.
You can download the full version of my standard wedding photography contract in Word format.