One of my clients want most of her photos edited with special effects (as she call it)
sepia, b&w, selective coloring, double exposure, all that stuff, she wants most if not all photos like this. I usually deliver 400-600 photos. any advice would be great.
basic editing is free & this includes zits, wrinkles, skin tones, bw, sepia etc ... basically the norm, if I only have to run one or two actions not charging extra
now, when they want me to lift them off of pic A & insert them in pic B or anything time consuming I charge $20 to $50 per image, depending on the job
like the time I stuck to the brides formals list, checked it twice, the drill sargent/formals assistant checked it twice, we did all requested ... bride forgot to list pic with her & her mom on the list ... well?? had to use 3 images to give her a portrait if her with mom, lots of layers, masking, cropping etc, that took a while & I charged $50 editing fee ... but it turned out to be an awesome image
Although too late for you, my contract states anything extra that you described above is $20 to $30 per image depending on how fancy they want to get. Some people run an Action in PS or Presets in LR, but I think for something like this you will need more hands on for each image because each image is different. This is why I charge per image. Have you seen some of the crap coming out of these computers because people click and button and hand over the prints or files
Now for things like bad skin I have advice in my contract for them to hire a make up artist for the wedding and/or engagement shoot. My advice to them is that their photos will look much better if they are fixed before we even get started. This way I cut down on my PP and they save some money.
I factor all those things into my pricing from the onset and charge accordingly as from experience clients dont like the impression that they are being charged extra for edits etc...
Every single one of my images is set up in Lightroom then taken into Photoshop to get it exactly where I want it.
Does this take a lot more time? Yes, but it shows our attention to detail and that finishing makes all the difference, no matter how much you get it "right in the camera"...
Our pricing starts relatively high for our area. This is because each image is perfect, at least by our standards. If we charged for editing, our clients would probably just walk out. Although we do charge for the time, they never see that.
If we show our best work on our website, why would we charge more to deliver that quality? I see this all the time when viewing others websites. Their examples are killer, then you view one of their galleries or the final delivered images and they have no life. That's false advertising if you ask me. I'M NOT SAYING YOU DO THIS!
Now, I know you're already in to this one and can't go back, as mentioned before. What did you tell her to begin with about editing? I wouldn't charge for B&W or Sepia, but the time consuming edits, I would.
How much did you charge her for the photography? If you charged $500, $20 an image might be a bit much. If you charged $5,000, $50 an image would be fine. If she is ordering individual prints, then price them accordingly. If you included them in your package, charge her..
As Asim said, I'd set a flat rate - Then be sure to fix my pricing for this for next time. This is a tough one and sometimes you have to take the loss and do the best possible job possible to make yourself look good. If I don't include something that I should have in my pricing and all it costs me is time, I'll give it to them and learn a very valuable lesson.
For B&W and Sepia, you can just do a quick batch in Lightroom of Photoshop and get a decent result.
I know I rambled forever and I'm sorry. I hope this works out well for you. Please post back to let us know the end result...
Thanks for the advice, I will add to her pkg free of charge for the simple stuff, and charge $50 an hour for the complicated stuff. the problem she does not want prints or album, only a CD, We agreed on $1500 10 hour day.
Every single one of my images is set up in Lightroom then taken into Photoshop to get it exactly where I want it.
Does this take a lot more time? Yes, but it shows our attention to detail and that finishing makes all the difference, no matter how much you get it "right in the camera"...
Our pricing starts relatively high for our area. This is because each image is perfect, at least by our standards. If we charged for editing, our clients would probably just walk out. Although we do charge for the time, they never see that.
If we show our best work on our website, why would we charge more to deliver that quality? I see this all the time when viewing others websites. Their examples are killer, then you view one of their galleries or the final delivered images and they have no life. That's false advertising if you ask me. I'M NOT SAYING YOU DO THIS!
Now, I know you're already in to this one and can't go back, as mentioned before. What did you tell her to begin with about editing? I wouldn't charge for B&W or Sepia, but the time consuming edits, I would.
How much did you charge her for the photography? If you charged $500, $20 an image might be a bit much. If you charged $5,000, $50 an image would be fine. If she is ordering individual prints, then price them accordingly. If you included them in your package, charge her..
As Asim said, I'd set a flat rate - Then be sure to fix my pricing for this for next time. This is a tough one and sometimes you have to take the loss and do the best possible job possible to make yourself look good. If I don't include something that I should have in my pricing and all it costs me is time, I'll give it to them and learn a very valuable lesson.
For B&W and Sepia, you can just do a quick batch in Lightroom of Photoshop and get a decent result.
I know I rambled forever and I'm sorry. I hope this works out well for you. Please post back to let us know the end result...
What you say here is good advice but it appears this client wants much more "creative" stuff. That goes beyond edits. These particulars seem to call for each image being hand touched to a somewhat high degree (IE selective coloring).
Setting a per hour flat fee is cool and all too but you should provide an estimate of how much time it will take and probably get paid for it first too.
Personally, I charge a high price for this kind of stuff because many clients have these grand ideas of what will look good. I give them my advice based on my years of experience in graphic art and photography. They listen or they don't. When they don't they may end up with a picture of "selective coloring" that I would not want to represent me.....price is either my deterrent or fee for doing the work.
****However, before they even ask I do the artsy stuff as I see fit.****
This isn't to say they can't make a good call on what to do, but most of them are basing their vision on an image that it works for. Their's may not work the same way.
cordellwillis wrote:
What you say here is good advice but it appears this client wants much more "creative" stuff. That goes beyond edits. These particulars seem to call for each image being hand touched to a somewhat high degree (IE selective coloring).
Setting a per hour flat fee is cool and all too but you should provide an estimate of how much time it will take and probably get paid for it first too.
Personally, I charge a high price for this kind of stuff because many clients have these grand ideas of what will look good. I give them my advice based on my years of experience in graphic art and photography. They listen or they don't. When they don't they may end up with a picture of "selective coloring" that I would not want to represent me.....price is either my deterrent or fee for doing the work.
****However, before they even ask I do the artsy stuff as I see fit.****
This isn't to say they can't make a good call on what to do, but most of them are basing their vision on an image that it works for. Their's may not work the same way....Show more → Yeah, most of the basic stuff does not take much time, but what she wants is selective coloring, and working with layers (photo of couple inside a framed rose) stuff like this, but she wants many shots like this.
****However, before they even ask I do the artsy stuff as I see fit.****
This isn't to say they can't make a good call on what to do, but most of them are basing their vision on an image that it works for. Their's may not work the same way.
quoting cordellwillis ∆∆∆
I absolutely agree. I do most of the editing as I see fit. I personally will choose some b&W and if they want something already edited in B&W no problem. Se, we put many, many hours into all of the editing and retouching which is already part of our pricing. Most of our clients have very little input into the editing and even the album design.
After posting and reading the reply about the particular type of editing, I see the point about the per image rate. Again, not for us, but it absolutely makes sense and I think it's a great idea on the more extensive edits.
+1 to the 'its part of the package crowd'. My couples see fully edited images - its the product. I would also argue that bringing the clients vision into the discussiont is going too far.
Part of hiring a professional photographer surely is that you trust their 'eye' for a good picture.
