# Hiring someone to edit weddings



## huismanphotography (Jul 1, 2012)

I own my own photography business. We shoot everything (weddings, seniors, family, maternity, etc.) I recently had a baby and still want to keep my business going but find it hard to keep up on the editing of my photos - mainly the weddings. I was contemplating on hiring someone to help me edit them. I work out of the house so they would have to have their own editing equipment. Have any of you done that? If so, how much did you pay them? How did you find someone to hire? Any info you have on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!


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## tirediron (Jul 1, 2012)

Unless you're shooting film, any photographer should have the "equipment" to do post-processing.  I haven't done it, but I do do know one photographer who makes most of his living editing other photographer's work, however it's usually a case of doing many hours of work on one special image rather than a whole set.  Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable outsourcing my PP simply because it would (1) take away my creative control, and (2) cost too much.  I can't imagine anyone doing this sort of work for less than $50/hour (and more likely considerably more)...  assuming a typical wedding runs in to six-eight hours of editing, that's a LOT of money out of your pocket.  

Until your child is a little older, perhaps just reduce the number of comissions and increase the delivery time?  Maybe add a slight discount for those willing to wait longer (and of course, play the 'new parent' sympathy card).


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## KmH (Jul 1, 2012)

I know several wedding photographers that hire out their editing, and/or pay their second shooters to do it.

However, it becomes problematic if they don't have a quality, well maintained (calibrated) editing workstation with 16 -bit depth raster *and* vector graphics software.

You would want to retain responsibility for backing up your images before they go to whoever would do the editing.


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## WhiskeyTango (Jul 1, 2012)

A possible baby step in that direction would be a service like shootdotedit to do the basic normalizing.  They do the white balance, exposure, & color correction.  You still need to do the artistic end, i.e. cropping, B&W conversions, effects, etc.  Still, it can be a huge time saver and their prices seem reasonable to me.  FWIW, I've only used them once.  They're tailored to wedding shooters, and I'm not a wedding shooter.


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## Bitter Jeweler (Jul 1, 2012)

Whew! I'd get dizzy editing all your "Dutch Angled" images.


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## kundalini (Jul 1, 2012)

There was an article in Rangefinder magazine within the last six months or so and this question of outsourcing the editing process was discussed.  There are businesses and individuals setup for this type of service.  I believe the conclusion from the author of the article was that if you developed a good relationship with the editor with your vision, to get the basic editing done, leaving you the final touches, it can be a worthwhile venture.  I don't do weddings, but I could see myself as a business owner to give some weight to this option.  You would need to figure in this with your CODB to see if it is a viable alternative.


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## sandraadamson (Jul 1, 2012)

If you are looking for someone I might be interested. What aspects would you want to be edited? White balance, exposure, cropping? Are you shooting digital in RAW? I am a wedding photographer and I use lightroom 4 and pscs5 for my editing. I also have and use all nik software plugins on my images. I use dfine for noise reduction and viveza alot when I want to target certain areas of an image and not the entire image. I edit using layer masks in pscs5 as well. You can see my digital darkroom experience on my blog I have lots of examples of my editing skills. www.sandraadamson.blogspot.com then click on digital darkroom link on the left side. My website portfolio is www.sandraadamson.com if you ate interested let me know I'm a pretty easy going person and I love editing. My email photography@sandraadamson.com.

www.sandraadamson.com www.sandraadamson.blogspot.com


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## c.cloudwalker (Jul 1, 2012)

Seems to me like your business Plan wasn't thorough enough to plan for a baby coming along...

Now, my situation was quite different from yours. Different country, different type of photography, etc, etc. But the basics are the same, you shoot, you need PP. So, what to do?

Well, in the days when I did retail, I never did any PP myself. Of course, this was in the days of film but I really don't see why that should make any difference. My PP was done by the processing/printing lab. Retail photo is not that demanding if you know how to shoot. Get rid of a few blemishes and that's about it really. So talk to the people who handle your printing needs first. See what they can do for you.

Next, if you are a very, very busy shop, consider hiring a PP person. But I would not want an outsider taking my shots outside of my control. Meaning they would have to work within my space. By using an off-site sub-contractor, you are inviting all kinds of troubles.

Good luck.


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## kundalini (Jul 1, 2012)

c.cloudwalker said:


> ....
> Well, in the days when I did retail, I never did any PP myself. Of course, this was in the days of film but I really don't see why that should make any difference. *My PP was done by the processing/printing lab*. Retail photo is not that demanding if you know how to shoot. Get rid of a few blemishes and that's about it really. So talk to the people who handle your printing needs first. See what they can do for you.
> 
> Next, if you are a very, very busy shop, consider hiring a PP person. But I would not want an outsider taking my shots outside of my control. Meaning they would have to work within my space. *By using an off-site sub-contractor, you are inviting all kinds of troubles*.......


Aren't these two paragraphs contradictory? Was your previous processing/printing lab on-sight , in the days of film ?

(Hopefully) Adding on to the discussion, what if you were to send the "lab" a RAW file and an edited file of where you have already done your basic editing. This is the point where you want the "lab" to finish global editing. Let's say that out of 1000 shots of the event you have 50 keepers to send to the editor. I really can't go much further beyond that point from personal experince because I do very, very little of selective editing, in general but I have some skills to create a finished product. However, this dude that lives a thousand miles away from me can get those 50 images back to me in satisfactory order, that my finishing time is cut 75% and the additional cost of the "lab" to edit only costs my an additional 5% of the overhead. Would that not be worth a consideration?

I know, hypotheticals suck.


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## Sbuxo (Jul 1, 2012)

I know some great editors if you need any suggestions, PM me.


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## CCericola (Jul 1, 2012)

There were several companies at WPPI this year. I think you can still bring up the vender list from this year. If your style relays heavily on PP you might get frustrated but if all you need is culling, adjustments and color correcting I think outsourcing would make sense.

Sent from my iPad using PhotoForum


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## c.cloudwalker (Jul 14, 2012)

kundalini said:


> c.cloudwalker said:
> 
> 
> > ....
> ...



You are right, these two seem contradictory. But they are not because the lab did only minor work. Minor work that didn't change the shot in any major way. Removing blemishes does not change the shot in any way that is a problem.


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## GerryDavid (Jul 15, 2012)

I am tempted to start using evolveedits.com for some of my post work.  I spend to much time trying to get the color right and then I hate the time consuming simple edits like reducing the lines under the eyes, getting the eyes nice and sharp, cleaning up the picture, etc.  If I were to use them I would pay something like $0.30 per image for color correction and $1 for basic edits.  I wouldn't send off every picture from a shoot, just the ones that get picked to be ordered.  Then when I get them back I am free to get creative with them to make them my own style.

Now that I have a baby and look after him during the day when the wife is working, my time to edit has gone way down, so this might be a good solution.    And the less time I am behind photoshop is more time I can be behind the camera.

Plus you can get them to do some creative edits for only $3 an image, might be worth doing a couple of those per portrait.


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