had a kind of frustrating situation last week. did a commercial shoot for a small construction company, site documentation type stuff, nothing super complex. we agreed on deliverables over email, edited jpegs, a short timelapse of the site progress, standard stuff. I deliver everything, client is happy, then two days later they come back and ask if they can also have the raw DNG files because their in-house marketing person wants to do some additional editing.

I dont have a policy written anywhere about raws because honestly this is the first time anyones asked. ended up just giving them because I didnt want the drama and it wasnt a huge job. but it got me thinking I should probably have something in my contract about this. do you guys charge extra for raws or just never hand them over, or does it depend on the client? also like what do you even charge for that, its not like raws take me extra time to hand over its just a folder

curious how others handle the deliverables conversation upfront because I feel like I just winged my way through onboarding for the first two years and now stuff like this is catching up to me

raws are a whole thing and honestly you're smart to think about this now rather than later. I never include them by default and I do charge extra, not because of the effort involved in handing over a folder but because raw files have value ? they give the client basically the same asset you have, unprocessed, and some clients will use them to cut you out in the future or hand them to a cheaper editor. that might sound paranoid but it happened to a friend of mine with a recurring client.

my contract just says edited deliverables as specified, raw files available upon request at an additional licensing fee. the fee isnt huge, maybe $75-100 depending on the job, but it makes the point that its not just a freebie. most clients dont push back, and the ones who do usually just wanted to see if they could get it for free.

tbh I've gone back and forth on this. for my bigger corporate clients I dont give raws ever, its just not part of the deal and they dont ask. but for smaller local businesses I sometimes just include them if the relationship is good and I know they're not gonna do anything weird with them. probably not the most professional approach but it saves some back and forth. your situation sounds annoying though, the after-delivery ask is the worst timing because youve already lost any leverage. definitely worth putting something in writing before the next shoot even if its just a simple one pager