What to charge for replacing body parts

[nebulaoperator]

Hello everyone,

Would you guide through some photo manipulation related charges.
I have one project in particular that requires head replacement.source and the target. Some of you all ready seen what I am up to in my recent post.Here I am not very familiar how much should I charge for this kind of work. Basically I have to choose one source photo from variety and replace or simply stick it on the target photo. Quota is per job. Thank you.

[Pari Retouch]

I think replacing the head is not really so simple as we have to manage many things like lighting, perspective and all
If I was in your place I would not have charged less than $50 per image and I would have quoted according to the complexity of the image after watching previews of what have to be done.

[Mike]

Why do you think that you should charge differently for different body parts? In my opinion you should be charging for the time it takes to do whatever the customer wants done.

If it takes an hour, charge for the hour, if it takes two hours, charge for the two hours, it makes no difference if its a fingernail or an arm or a head.

[nebulaoperator]

I don't know. I think if I have to change a leg I would also consider charging per leg. I got your point you charge per hour. I tell you little secret: I am quiet a newbie it takes me a bit longer then normal. So I just charge per ,,part,,

[nebulaoperator]

Thank you Pari. In your opinion how would you estimate a complexity of this work? just curious.

[Mike]

Is there such a thing as a "normal" amount of time to change a head or whatever? I do not think so.

If you think you are a bit slower than others, then just lower your hourly rate a bit.

The more experience you have the faster you will be able to work and the better you will be able to judge the complexity and the time to complete the work.

So, practice, practice, practice!!

[nebulaoperator]

What I ment mike normal is comparative in relationship to word newbie. By the way not every client wants or likes to be charged by hour.
Thank you for advice.

[renata]

Forgive me because I don't know about charging for Photoshop. But I do know about charging for software development. My suggestions would be

1) learn how to estimate how long things take for you. You'll get the first ones wrong, but that's O.K. Perhaps keep a book so that you can look back and see how long different things took. This can only come with experience. (Although a joke in software development is to estimate what you think and then double it!)

2) Act professional. Don't bring up your inexperience if you don't need to.

3) (My suggestion only) Rather than charge cheaper rates, keep your hourly rate at a level that a professional would charge, but quietly spend extra time to get it done. Do you think that software development houses charge less because they've hired a junior programmer? No. But they let the junior programmer take longer than the quoted billable hours in order to do the job (as long they are "learning"). The customer doesn't need to know this.

BUT - build this unbilled time in to your private schedule. You have to give yourself time to do a really good job.

Hope it's O.K to butt in. Good luck.

[shift studio]

Originally Posted by renata;

3) (My suggestion only) Rather than charge cheaper rates, keep your hourly rate at a level that a professional would charge, but quietly spend extra time to get it done. Do you think that software development houses charge less because they've hired a junior programmer? No. But they let the junior programmer take longer than the quoted billable hours in order to do the job (as long they are "learning"). The customer doesn't need to know this.

BUT - build this unbilled time in to your private schedule. You have to give yourself time to do a really good job.

Hope it's O.K to butt in. Good luck.

Yup, pay attention here, this is good advice.

--shift studio.

[renata]

I've got a story about a place I worked at once. I was new, and unfamiliar with their custom software. I had to make some changes to a program which was used to process a customer's stuff. It was horribly written software, all convoluted and uncommented. I knuckled down and studied this terrible software. It took me about a week and a half.

I filled in the timesheets, honestly, thinking that they were internal timesheets which were genuinely measuring what people spent their time on. Which is perfectly valid, mind you. BUT, the sales people used this to bill the client. So, my "learning time" for coming to grips with unfamiliar software was counted as billable!

The client nearly had a fit when they were charged for 60 hours @ $100 per hour for what they thought was a simple change...

Those were the days...
[BTW: $100ph was what the company charged for our time, not what we were paid!]

[nebulaoperator]

What an advice! Thank you renata. Girls are rooling this thread. I love it , very clear and simple