had a situation last week that i wasnt really prepared for. shot a commercial job for a small construction company, progress documentation stuff, pretty routine. delivered the edited jpegs and the client came back asking for the raw DNG files too because their marketing person wanted to do their own edits apparently.

i said sure but then realized i had no idea what to even charge for that or whether i should just include it or what. ended up just sending them over because i didnt want the awkward conversation and now im kind of annoyed at myself because that feels like it should have been an upsell or at least something in a contract. do people normally give out raws? i feel like thats kind of giving away part of what you do but maybe im overthinking it

also as a side note my contract at the time was basically just a one page thing i found online and adapted which clearly wasnt covering enough stuff so if anyone has thoughts on what should definitely be in a commercial contract id love to hear it

yeah never give out raws for free, that should 100% be a line item. not because of anything precious about your workflow but just because raw files include a lot of metadata and also its a legitimate deliverable that takes up their storage, requires them to have software to open it, and honestly a lot of clients dont realize what they're asking for until they get a 4gb folder of DNGs and have no idea what to do with it.

i charge a flat fee for raw file licensing, mine is $75 on top of whatever the job is. some people do a percentage. the framing i use is that the edited deliverables are the product, and the raws are the source material which is a separate thing. most clients accept that without blinking once you explain it that way. for the contract stuff ? honestly just get a proper photography/drone contract template from somewhere like ASMP or one of the aerial specific ones people sell on gumroad. the one page thing will bite you eventually, almost got me once on a usage rights dispute.

this exact thing happend to me with a wedding videography client who wanted the drone footage raw mp4s before i color graded them and i just panicked and gave them over lol. learned my lesson. now i have it in writing upfront what the deliverables are and anything outside that scope is a change order with a price attached. its a little uncomfortable at first to be that businessy about it but clients actually respect it more i think, makes you seem more legit than just winging it