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Author Topic: What to charge for scanning work?  (Read 1763 times)

PeterAit

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What to charge for scanning work?
« on: September 04, 2015, 09:11:42 am »

An acquaintance has asked me to create a digital archive of his family history album. It's quite interesting, going back to the Civil War war with photos, handwritten letters, newspaper clippings, and so on - but it's also a lot of work because the pages are larger than my scanner. He wants to pay me but I have no idea what to charge.Any ideas what "industry standard" rates would be? THanks.
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Colorado David

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Re: What to charge for scanning work?
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2015, 10:27:20 am »

What rate do you use when estimating editing or processing time?

PeterAit

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Re: What to charge for scanning work?
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2015, 11:11:19 am »

What rate do you use when estimating editing or processing time?

I rarely do photography commercially (for clients), and when I do I tend to charge by the job, so I do not have a rate for that kind of work. 
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Justinr

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Re: What to charge for scanning work?
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2015, 12:05:40 pm »

I rarely do photography commercially (for clients), and when I do I tend to charge by the job, so I do not have a rate for that kind of work.  

It's a tricky situation alright. I find the problem is that friends are all keen to pay until you tell them how much it's going to cost, and then things can turn cooler. Friendship can only stretch so far and you spending countless hours doing something which your mate thinks will be covered by $50 and a beer will end in tears if you are not careful.

One way to look at it is to place a value on your time, what could earn doing a job of  similar skill level elsewhere? Maybe it's ten £/$/€ an hour, you've then got a base to work from, 100 hours work = £/$/€ 1,000. If you have a trial run to see how quick you can get through it then you'll have some idea of a fair cost.

Whatever you do explain how you arrived at the figure, for trust can be easily lost.
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: What to charge for scanning work?
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2015, 12:27:21 pm »

What I've encountered is that people with no experience with this kind of work have no idea how much time it really does take. In general, the work other people do tends to look easy. Doing an underpaid half hour job for a friend is one thing, but committing yourself to 6 months work is quite another. Best to realistically estimate how much time you think it will take, you both need to know that.

Maybe do a sample of a few photos and letters, add up the hours it takes, then take it from there. Even if you don't end up doing the work, that sample will serve as a starting point for any quotes he may get elsewhere, which also helps him out.
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Robert

degrub

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Re: What to charge for scanning work?
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2015, 03:13:39 pm »

Find an old copy stand, use a m4/3 camera and macro lens, and click away. That may be good enough and a lot quicker than scanning.
Frank
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Justinr

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Re: What to charge for scanning work?
« Reply #6 on: September 05, 2015, 03:11:07 am »

Perhaps it's worth suggesting that he buy his own scanner at a fraction of the cost you'll be charging for your labour.
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