Do Most Photographers......

[RooB]

Originally Posted by Caitlin

RooB, you are going to have to give some real examples to convince us the costs you are quoting are realistic.

Consider this for a moment.

Again, during a work day, a high-end glamour photographer will take several thousand pictures-- the photographer will narrow the photos down to a few hundred photos as the best of the lot for his sets. The photographer will sell those sets to content providers for anywhere from $500 - $5,000 depending on the number of photos (and name of the model) he has taken. But before he sells those photo sets to content providers (who buy the photos for a few dollars each), they need to be retouched or they won't sell at all. So, even though the photographer is making a hefty profit on his photography, he still can't afford to pay "professional" rates, because if he does he's going from making a mint to making a pint (or even going broke) just in retouching fees. And even from the start, almost half of his profit will eaten through travel expenses and paying the model(s) for their time.

So, if he's dealing with 100s of photos to sell on every work day (he may do 4-5 shoots every week) which sell for $4-$5 per photo to various content providers-- how, exactly, is he going to afford to pay more than $1 or $2 per photo without losing his profits?

By the way, when I say glamour photographer-- I don't mean fashion photographers who publish maybe a dozen pictures at a time in a magazine or hired for a specific job-- I mean glamour photographers, who are responsible for the content of modelling sets designated for website publication where 100s of photos are published at a time.

We've already established in other threads that you are prepared to work for non-professional rates.

That's only because I'm not high end, and I refuse to work with commercial industries-- and I do turn down jobs that I consider have unprofessional rates for my area.

[roger_ele]

I have a studio and we do our own retouching and printing. I also belong to the local pro photo group and I would guess from talking to the other photographers that the 50/50 guess is about right I think in most cases it has less to do with the business model and more to do with the personality of the photographer.

[byRo]

Guys, all this makes for a long discussion - but doesn't go anywhere at all!

[see "Rant"]

Retouching can be whole lot of different things, can take from 2 minutes up to 4 hours (or more). That's a factor of 120, and you try and compare the prices as if all retouching was equal?

RooB has already said in other threads that he does not have heavy overheads and lives in an area where the cost of living is lower. The US$1800 figure might be OK for RooB (Canada), for me (Brazil) it would be real good money.

Here's my logic....
Good retouchers can be found all over the world*.
+ Clocks run at the same rate all around the world.
+ Internet has completely done away with distance as a factor.
+ The buying power of a buck is very different around the world.
= Lots of very happy third-world retouchers.

Rô
* OK, maybe I'll concede the high-end NYC guys - but only maybe

[RooB]

Originally Posted by byRo

Guys, all this makes for a long discussion - but doesn't go anywhere at all!

Too true, byRo, as you say, there's so many conditions, factors, and variables it is impossible to come to any sort of agreement or understanding, not to mention that there are many different types of retouching jobs, and they don't all have the same professional pay scale.

[emarts]

Further my education please. Are there many retouchers getting work straight from the Internet? All of my work comes from face-to-face meetings with clients. Sure, after a while, they will send me work via the Internet, but I don't have any clients that are outside of my grazing range.

Can you really make a living having never met the client? Or are these only onesy-twosy type jobs?

[byRo]

emarts,

What I mean is that the photographer can send the images to the retoucher, via Internet, in any part of the world.

Higher end stuff would be difficult, but at the low end there's no problem.

See the classifieds. There are a few invites there for this type of work.

Rô

[Scarface]

I don`t know if this is still of interest. But i wouldnt even step out of the door of my appartment for one dollar a picture. I really don`t know where you all live but in Paris I would be sleeping under bridge by now.
The average rate for retouching for Fashion / Lifestyle photography starts at 100 Euros/ hour and goes up to 500 Euros/ hour in Paris.
Obviously this market is very competive but it is still a market what isnt saturated. The best example is a friend of mine he worked as a hairdresser until 2 years ago and then started to get in to fashion retouching. He is now making so much money you wouldnt believe it if I will tell you.
What I want to say is that you shouldnt sell out on any means to be a retoucher. There are also otherways to make your living.

Anyways thats my bit to the topic.

Best

[jayk2]

I do all my own retouching and I learn along the way. I'm always on the look out to get better. Photoshop is an amazing tool and I say I use 3% (so what, i'm shooting high) of all it entails. I'd love to bring on someone that could edit the chosen images from my shoots, but often wonder how likely is it. That being said, I don't ever want to give up learning and putzing around with photoshop.

[santajuana]

I don't agree with Ro, I'm in a different country and I can provide a high end image via Internet, I'm a photographer and graphic designer and I know that each photographer can't do their own retouch, so I provide this service and they can upload and download their work and my retouches with a FTP server. And talking about the quality.... that's when the emails become important, with each mail I can comunicate with the clients so they'll know what I'm doing and what's happening with the image. Of course you can send a proof image first so the client see what have you done. Be sure they'll reply you with all the corrections.

Silvia.