Hello all. Posting this here because there's always good advice and plenty of it, hope it's not the wrong place.
First, not looking for a job, but does anyone farm out their retouching work, or do most pros do it themselves?
I ask because my wife does retouching and we will soon move back to the States. She would like to pick up some work while continuing her education and would like any advice on how to pick up some work.
So any insight from you all who do this professionally would be apprecitaed.
Hitting the streets? Trying to make contact before we go there? Does she need a good printed, or online portfolio first? Thanks in advance for pointing us in the right direction.
Having a portfolio would certainly be the first step. Look around the interwebs for photographers who appear to get high-budget shoots (otherwise your odds of them looking to farm out their PS work is lower). Ideally, find some photographers who appear to have high-budget shoots with mediocre retouching, e-mail them, and offer your services.
To get my foot in the door in a similar situation, I once offered my services for zero obligation for the first shoot. He sent me a DVD with the 3 raw files, I returned low-res proofs with a fat watermark across the middle. If he didn't like them, he owed me nothing, if he liked them, he paid me my standard, previously disclosed rate. He liked them
I let my lab do the retouching. They do excellent work. I don't have time and haven't taken the time to learn beyond the basics.
As for pricing check out what the labs charge.
Professional retouchers mostly charge by the hour.... anywhere from $75 to $150 and up.
Obviously, a lot depends on their caliber of work. If your wife does basic blemish retouching, color correction, etc, then she would be at the bottom end of the scale. A lot of work there is per image, i.e. $5 per head to remove braces. The higher end work like glamour retouching, body and fabric reconstruction tends to be more hourly, and at the higher end of the pay scale. See www.amydresser.com and www.christyschuler.com for some samples.
I would also speculate (and again, this is pure speculation) that retouchers who do lots, and lots of work for a specific photographer might work out some sort of contract pricing at that point, either per image, or for the whole series. Amy Dresser, as referenced above, does quite a bit of work for Jill Greenberg - www.manipulator.com
Jonathan H wrote:
Professional retouchers mostly charge by the hour.... anywhere from $75 to $150 and up.
Obviously, a lot depends on their caliber of work. If your wife does basic blemish retouching, color correction, etc, then she would be at the bottom end of the scale. A lot of work there is per image, i.e. $5 per head to remove braces. The higher end work like glamour retouching, body and fabric reconstruction tends to be more hourly, and at the higher end of the pay scale. See www.amydresser.com and www.christyschuler.com for some samples.
I would also speculate (and again, this is pure speculation) that retouchers who do lots, and lots of work for a specific photographer might work out some sort of contract pricing at that point, either per image, or for the whole series. Amy Dresser, as referenced above, does quite a bit of work for Jill Greenberg - www.manipulator.com
