Hello Everyone

Here's my first post :) I've been lurking now and again on this forum and today I've decided to join up as a proper bonifidy member. Its going to take me weeks to get though all the post on this forum!

Let me tell you a little about me before I ask my question. I left my job as an IT Manager ( anything to do with IT & retouching ) at a Photographic Studio in Yorkshire a little over a year ago. The main reason was a desire to go it alone, business wise, and I also have a strong interest in Affiliate marketing and wanted more time to spend doing that. I have done a little retouching over the last year, for the place I used to work and a new studio that was started by people who left the first place.

I want to get back into it though now. I'm making money with my other online endevours, but not enough, so I want to do a bit more of what I'm good at, retouching.

Ive always charged around £125 per day for Photographic retouching, I originally based this on what I used to have to pay for local freelance agencies when I needed extra help. But is this the norm for the UK? Too much? Too Little? Any other Freelancers in the UK care to share what they charge per day? Per Hour?

I'm just collecting together a list of Photographers I plan to contact for some work, but want to make sure I'm competitive.

All comments greatly appreciated.

Regards

Chiefretouch

Also if anyone need a freelance retoucher in Leeds please see my site www.chiefretouch.com (http://www.chiefretouch.com)

Hi

I may be looking for a regular freelance retoucher which should be able to fit in with other work you are doing. A rough guide is, all work is done online so requires download and upload. Also we charge per image in 15 minute blocks so you would have to be willing to work on one image for potentially just 15 minutes.

If you're interested send me a mail to martin@overnightimages.com or if you're a skype user, my username is overnightimages

Background to my need for your info is that I have an overnight retouch co, I have the opportunity to work for a major household corporate 'name' through personal contacts. They require that we can work daytimes too in case of urgent work. For me it doesn't matter whether the work is done night or day, so if you're interested let em know.

reagrds

Martin

Cheers Martin

I've e-mailed you

Regards

Chiefretouch

From my experience: Always rate your work by 'the job', not by 'the hour'.
This gives you the possibility to remain flexible.
What I mean is: for average retouching (the kind of work that many average retouchers could do), you charge modest prices. If you don't, your client might go anywhere.
Once you know that you have something to offer, others don't, you might raise your prices...and no one will argue about it.
That's how I did it, and it works.

Also remember:
"Small Photographers" do their own retouching and "Great Photographers" only want the best retouchers to work on their photos.

I might be wrong, but if you want to earn a good living, you'd better be good, Chiefretouch.

To all the members or 'RetouchPRO' who earn their living only with retouching, raise your finger!

Hi Cainam


Thanks for your response and thank you for your advice, You are right about the different rates for different clients & jobs, the figure I mentioned is just my starting figure. Retouching used to be my day job, now I would say I make 50% of my money through retouching the rest through Affiliate Marketing. Am I good.... well I don't really like to blow my own trumpet.. but yes I am. I worked in the Home Decor sector for a lot of large companies such as B&Q. I still often have my images on their homepage and throughout their site.

Regards

Chiefretouch

Can someone please be more specific with the rates? I mean - using numbers.

Let's say you made the following retouch:
before (http://telperion.cult.bg/ying/graph/02_before.jpg)
after (http://telperion.cult.bg/ying/graph/02_after.jpg)

The image is part of a bigger photo, but the one that needed most of the work.

What would you charge?

Hi Ying

For that image I would estimate it would take me around 10-20 Mins to complete what you have done on your "After" image. So going by the normal £60-80 per hour rate most studios charge I would say £20-30 for that image. But if it is part of a larger Job, say 20 images and the rest would take you say 2-5 mins each you could charge less for those, but make it more apealing to the client by saying £5-10 per image.

Hope this helps

Have Fun

Chiefretouch

Thank you, Chiefretouch :)

Respected sir,
Good Wishes and warm greeting.

We are from India doing Photoshop works for the past 6 years. We are well expert in Restoration of old photos, photo colorizing, photo montage, background change, object or person elimination etc..

Kindly requesting you to give an opportunity to work online with your company .

Please visit our website www.realretouch.com
It reflects our image and growth in this field.

Dear Ying,

my price will be very very less on this kind of work, if you have bulk quantity do contact us . info@pixartindia.com

www.pixartindia.com

Well hello for the first time...
If you’d like to know what freelancers earn in central london working for top advertising agencies without a recruitment agent placing you.... You could get up to as much as £350- £400 a day. BUT, the market is flooded with so called retouchers and people that think they can use photoshop taking most of the lower paid jobs making life for joe blogs quite slow on the work front. As discussed previously, every job / client has it’s own budget and idea of creativity that goes into each project, so try not to sell yourself too short and in reverse not go over board on the rate... Pitch yourslef where you feel comfortable... Hourly rates for freelancers through recruitment agencies range from £12 - £35, pending on your tax status too. From my experience most Photographers at the moment, do it themselves to earn extra money as the budgets and work has been drying up out there over the last 4-5 years... And then if you get anything to do with Fashion (the worst paid area) you’ll more than likely end up doing it for free.) Working with Photographers that pay you well are rare indeed. So good luck in your quest..

I hope the above helps....

Ben

Shame... I used to get £300 an hour.. Now I get around £100 - £150 per hour.
If it is editorial, then I will charge per image, But they have to pay for ammendments and Proofs.

Depends on the Job. But this is for REAL creative retouching, not smudging!

Unfortunately, loads of crappy so called "retouchers" are killing the marketplace.

But hey, the companies that pay £15 per hour, get the work they deserve!

Unfortunately, loads of crappy so called "retouchers" are killing the marketplace.



it's also the fact that a "good enough" quality level is now acceptable, so you could also put some of the blame on art directors as well...

Definately!