Since finishing my photography degree this summer I'm now getting quite a lot of photography work and was wondering what people charge for image processing. A typical shoot is around 2000-3000 frames and I'm struggling to find time to keep up with everything.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Chris.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=218264\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Now that you're out of school and actually trying to work as a photographer., you will quickly learn, and probably despise, the fact that photography is the easy part. 90% of your time will be the business end of it.
Pricing (marketing) is a never ending struggle, and perhaps the most important one--given that you talent and technical skill is on par with other professionals. But I've seen a lot of good business men and women with marginal photography skills make more money in photography than those who are 100% better photographers.
When I price things I try to keep it all as simple as possible. Charge a nominal fee for 2 hours, which is dependent on your location. Give something for that fee, such as two images plus all the processing for two different poses. Then charge a fee for processing each additional pose plus a fee for each additional print. Make sure you tell people that your fees change for every job since every job is different. That way you have wiggle room. This doesn't apply if you are doing what I call "mall shots" where your clients step into a preset stage and you pop the shutter with preset lighting and you're done. You can simply charge a set fee for that.
For other unstaged photography, for instance, if you have a person who wants one good image and it takes you 20 minutes to take the picture and process it, you would charge much less than your standard guideline fee. Make it seem like you have a great price, and try to make up your money in processing and printing. I say this because you are going to spend LONG hours processing anyway, so you might as well get paid for it. If you take 3000 images and offer two up, fully processed, for a set fee and that's all they want, then you just saved yourself hours processing images. You're done. You spent 3 hours and made 200 bucks, or whatever.
So they want more and they want to see more. Great. Crop and process a couple more images and let them take a look. They want them too, then you charge your agreed on processing fee per image. This way you don't spend hours processing and cropping, etc only to get the "no thanks" line--after you spent all of your time.
Remember, you're the photographer. If they want to see all 3000 images, simple tell them that isn't going to happen because in order to get them ready, you'd have to spend hours, and you aren't willing to show them images that haven't been properly processed.
The other way to go about this is charge a large fee up front, such as wedding photography, outlining what your client gets for say 3-5000 dollars. Or have a sliding wedding scale, from 500 to 10, 000 so you get a large piece of the wedding pie. Then stick to your guns and give them what you said you would, and no more unless they pay for your time. Make sure you understand that when you offer a set price, you're the one who has to parse through 3, 000 images. It's probably better to learn NOT to get into the habit of having digital diarrhea. Shoot some solid shots and go for quality, not quantity. You go for quantity the time is on you!
In a two hour shoot I usually shoot around 2-300 images and that's far more than I need, and it takes a LONG time to just get them ready to post on the web so your clients can see them. Remember too that people don't want so many choices that they get fatigued thinking about which one is "the best." Make your best judgment and give them a good offering, but don't shotgun it. You're the photographer so you're suppose to be able to choose the "best" images. You also want to avoid people choosing shots that are perhaps a little better environmentally or compositional, but where you, for examaple, got a soft shot on the eyes. If you turn those out, YOU look bad. I've gotten shots that I REALLY love and the client never sees them because, for instance, one eye was a little too soft.
These are simply two ways of many to price yourself. It's no fun for anyone, especially those more into photography than the business side of it.
Oh yeah, and to answer your question, "How much do you charge for image processing" is an impossible question to answer. Image processing is dynamic in that some images take more processing than others depending on what you are after. All images will need basic processing, such as white balance and color correction, sharpening, etc. Others will need smoothing, eye popping, hair removal, etc. You could have a full time job as a retoucher, but you won't have time to do that most likely, unless you do less photography and more Photoshop.
You will get faster at it as you go, that is, as your work flow becomes more efficient. I can process a portrait, including blemish removal, face smoothing, and eye sharpening, plus the other basic white balance and RAW settings from start to finish in about 10 minutes when I'm on. That's on an image where the person has decent skin and the image was done correctly in the camera. But that's where you make your money. Sometimes you'll spend much longer than that, and sometimes the entire shoot will go in 10 minutes per image. You decide how much you want for "basic" processing. Put a before and after shot on your website for comparison if people want to know what "basic" looks like. Or just tell people what it is in a way that sends the message that you decide what it is. After all, they should have seen your work, so they know what you can do. You don't have to explain your business to them. They only need be concerned with the finished product.
Be prepared to be firm with some people also. As you probably know, some people will try to get everything they can free or nearly so. They'll call you everyday about this or that not being "just right" or "We don't really like our first choice anymore [after you did the work] and were wondering if it would be alright if we used a different pose?" Sure, I'll do as many as you want for X cost per image processing. People will run you into the ground if you let them. Don't. Amateurs do that and they go broke too.
Good luck.
