Top 5 Photo Editing Services for Outsourcing your Photography Editing

When it comes to showcasing your photography and selling images, you will need different levels of editing. Culling and color correction are not cutting it for an established photography studio anymore. You must show it to sell it and what I mean by that is offering higher end edits for your client reveal or preview.  

1. Premium Edits $4/image
This service includes skin softening, dodge and burn techniques, one of our custom toning applications and optional texture overlay. Our editors will look at your image and make the best decisions to give you and your imagery that special something that stands out from the crowd. 

Premium edits are best when added to your IPS or In Person Sales order for an event. Photographers will typically add 5-10 per order as a way of really making their images stand out in a cost-effective way.

Image by Gronde Photography

2. Signature Edits – $150/image

Signature Edits have come a long way from their origins with Sal Cincotta. From the start, this service has been there to create impactful showpieces to help create sellable fine art prints and to elevate portfolios. From selection to art direction and the post-production itself, Evolve can be your trusted partner to create Signature edits that get the most out of your images.

These large-scale edits are positioned for IMPACT as the single image to tell the story of the day. This is the most powerful image to show during your sales session. Photographers will typically add 1-3 per order and show these on a large screen for scale. 

3. Hybrid – $100/image

The Hybrid Edit is intended to fill the gap in creative services between our Premium and Signature Edit services. We set out to create a service that would elevate a Premium Edit to new heights using retouching, while also taking the pressure of art directing off your shoulders.

Hybrid Edits are best used for 1-3 big impact images mixed in with your order. With skin smoothing, blemish removal, minor distraction removal, a sky swap, straightening, skew fixes, faux HDR, dodging & burning, premium toning and a texture overlay all included, Hybrid edits are sure to make a big impact with your clients.

Image by Gronde Photography

4. Retouching – $100/hour
Our Retouching Services are performed by some of the most talented editors in the world. Everyone’s description of what “retouching” of an image means is slightly different. From boudoir to commercial images, we work behind the scenes to ensure the extent to which images are retouched is individually managed and quoted, either per body of work or per image.

Photographers usually order this service following their sales session or once the album has been designed. Your client will have custom requests, and this is your opportunity to upsell them. Simply gather your client’s requirements, get a quote from the team, charge 3x the quote and pass along the costs to your client. 

5. Batch Services – $25 to $50/order

Tight timelines demand a “plug and play” environment to receive files that are ready to go versus wasting valuable time in the tedious and time-consuming step of prepping files. This is a problem regardless of personal workflow and can help save hours. Eliminate wasted time by utilizing Evolve’s Batch Services. 

Whether it is ordering our Batch Services to simply render a job to .jpg for proofing, giving your proofs an extra something special with skin smoothing, or having the team upload your files directly to your client’s gallery, we are here to help you save time. Many customers request full service custom Premier plans to keep costs down for every job. 

These are the top 5 editing services as we offer many custom options with our premier plans. Here is how one of our current clients Brandy & Chris Gronde, owners of Gronde Photography choose the right services for their business. 

Images by Gronde Photography

Q: What editing services do you typically order, and do you mix it up per shoot?

Answer: For every single session we do (whether that’s wedding, seniors, families), we cull our images ourselves and then order full color correction of all our culled images, 1 signature edit and 10 Premium Edits as a default standard process. Sometimes if a client lets us know they love black and white images, we may also order around 5 Deluxe Edits and specifically ask for B&W edits. If a wedding has more than 1 location, we think could be a signature we might order 2 Signatures, but we always get at least 1. When we first started with Evolve our clients didn’t always buy a big print of their signature edit, BUT we slowly but surely swapped out 90% of the images on our website with signature edits and now clients come to us SPECIFICALLY to get that style of image because it’s so unlike every other photographer in our area. When we plan our sessions and scout locations for this specifically, we base a lot of those around locations where we know we can take an image worthy of a signature edit (i.e. strong secondary element).

Q: What do you see as the biggest value ordering services as a Premier unlimited member? 

Answer: The biggest value of being a Premier Member for us is the fact that it keeps our brand style consistent.  Before we used Evolve and we were editing our own shoots, our editing style was all over the place.  Our wedding style didn’t match our senior style, our editing would change depending on whose work I was admiring at the time, and we just couldn’t lock in a style for our own brand.  Using Evolve for every session took our hands out of the cookie jar, so to speak, after the Evolve team worked with us to find an editing style that resonated with us, our brand vision, and our shooting style.  Now, when clients come to our website, they see a consistent style throughout our entire portfolio regardless of the genre/niche, which makes it easier for us to cross genres.  We have had clients come to us for maternity sessions even though we do not have maternity on our website but because our weddings, seniors, and families all have that same style they feel comfortable knowing their maternity images will have that same style of edits.  Being a Premier member allows us to send even our personal projects and styled content shoots through evolve knowing we can at least have them color corrected and save myself the time of having to do that which allows us more content to post to our social media.  On the flip side, we also loved that we didn’t always have to be Premier members.  When we started using Evolve, we didn’t shoot enough volume for the price of membership to make sense.  We weren’t shooting enough weddings to even use all the free color corrections, so our business was able to grow WITH Evolve to the point where now I couldn’t imagine not being a Premier member.  

It's time to let go! Try Premier today & get 2 months free.

Enter “Other” in the “How did you hear about us?” field, then enter the code PREMIER2FREE.

How To Choose The Right Photo Editing Service For Your Business

Now that you are ready to let go of editing, you need to find a trusted team of professionals to depend on. Keywords are depend on. You have a business to run and can’t be wasting time to micro-manage editors you pay. Once you have the right team in place it’s time to leverage their editing services to generate more revenue. Many studios start out offloading image selection or more commonly known as culling and color correction. These are the tasks that take hours to deliver on. The question is, what other editing services could you be making more money on?

Creative services are where you stand out and make more money during the client preview. Services like premium, hybrid, signature edits and custom retouching are for your select 1-5% of images that stand out from the rest of the shoot. Each service has a use like premium edit for example are great to show multiple outfits on a senior shoot or showcase the highlights of a wedding day. These edits run $4 each and are handpicked by your editors to include the following: color correction, dodge & burn, skin smoothing, creative toning, and textures. Need more editing like a sky swap, distractions removed from the background, beauty retouching? This would be a hybrid edit priced at $100/image. This allows you to pick the image and the team will do the rest. This edit deserves to be on the cover of a photo album or a 20×30 in your client’s home. 

Image by Jack Adams Photography

For our highest level edit we offer Signature edits, where the team hand picks 1 image to take it to that next level. Think about image comp and the difference between a meriting image and one that is just average. This is where details matter and we custom art direct images just for you. Nothing better than having an art piece to sell to your client in 3-5 business days. After you have your sales session or deliver your client images, they will likely want custom requests. This is where our retouching service shines, priced at $100/hour. Upselling your client by offering custom retouching is a no brainer. Start by gathering your client’s requirements, get a quote from the team, pass along the cost to your client before placing your order.

End of the day, you want to walk into your sales or preview session with assets ready to buy. Not showing creative edits from your client’s sessions is a huge miss for sales. Keep in mind, if they don’t buy these same images from the preview who cares. Use them for marketing, refresh your website, post to social media, etc. You’ll book 3-5 clients with this content and end of the day; don’t let the images your customer buys control your brand. 

Image by Jack Adams Photography

Let’s face it, images your clients pick make you wonder why they booked your studio right?  Don’t depend on them to love the same images you do. Instead position your work to attract more customers, be your brand’s ambassador. End of the day, you should show high end edits to make a bigger sale. 

We offer many custom options and with our premier plans, we’re here to help prepare you for making more money. Here is how one of our current clients Jack Adams, owner of Jack Adams Photography chooses the right services services for his business. 

Images by Jack Adams Photography

Q: How do you make more money showing clients creative edits?

Answer: Showing clients creative edits makes me more money by showing them that these aren’t just images, they are works of art that deserve to be center pieces in their homes.

Q: How does Evolve save you time and money with a Custom Premier plan?

Answer: Evolve saves me time and money with my custom plan as I can spend time I would otherwise spend editing on marketing, shooting, and working to get more clients. Not to mention the extra time I get to spend with my family as well

It's time to let go! Try Premier today & get 2 months free.

Enter “Other” in the “How did you hear about us?” field, then enter the code PREMIER2FREE.

Sal Cincotta talks about How to determine if outsourcing your post-production is right for you?

Sal_Cincotta_Post-Production_EvolveEdits

Sal Cincotta talks about How to determine if outsourcing your post-production is right for you?

Is outsourcing right for you? In this post, Sal Cincotta, co-founder and co-owner explores some of the things you should consider before outsourcing your post-production work.

Outsourcing your post-production is one of the toughest things any photographer will ever consider. How can anyone possibly edit your images the way you can? Well, I got some news for you. It’s not that complicated. Sure, no one will ever edit your images EXACTLY the way you will, but then again, is that really necessary? Can your clients really notice that subtle difference of 2% more magenta? Or, is it tied to how neurotic we are as artists? I think we both know the answer. 

Here is the reality. Color correction is no different than other mission critical business tasks, for example, accounting, legal services, etc. There is no reason for you to do it all. You can’t scale and you can’t grow your business this way. It’s a recipe for burnout and customer service disasters as they wait and wait for you to edit their images. Instead, outsourcing your post-production allows you to focus your time and energy on the business tasks that will help you grow and make more money – marketing and shooting. Unless you are going to offer color correction as a service for other photographers, this is a non-revenue generating task and should be delegated.

Is it really any different than the days of film? Sure, it was nice to know how to work in the dark room, but most photographers sent their development off to the lab. Why? Because of the time, effort and expertise required to develop their own film. The only thing that has changed is the medium. Today, we are digital.

Here are some things to consider before you outsource.

  1. Be patient. No one is you. No one is going to edit exactly like you. However, a partner will learn your style and deliver a consistent set of images that is within 90% or more of your style. Think of what you can do with all that extra time.
  2. Maximize your time. Once you start letting go, you will wonder how you ever did without it. Great, now you have all this free time. What are you going to do with it? Focus on the things that matter. Family? Marketing? Shooting? Growing your business? The choice is yours, but do something.
  3. Increase turn time for your clients. Imagine a world where your client images are ready in less than a week? How happy would your clients be? In fact, you should be using your turn around times as part of your marketing and competitive advantage. People want to see their images almost immediately. Give them what they want.
  4. Beyond color correction. Something Evolve is known for are their creative edits. It can be as simple as a stylized black and white image, Premium Edits, to something much more involved and creative like their Signature Edits. Give your business and your clients that extra something to really make your images stand out.
  5. Unlimited. There are a lot of options out there for color correction services, but one thing to consider is a program that offers unlimited color correction. Plans like this allow you to grow your business and give you maximum scale with your business. Best of all, it allows you to properly budget your costs. The more you shoot, your cost per job goes down. Check out our unlimited program – Premier
  6. Stop making excuses. There will always be a reason to not do it. Think you are not busy enough? That’s one of the most common excuses we hear. People are constantly shocked when they realize that even a moderate shooting schedule or busy season can bog you down. Evolve is here to help you grow. It’s a chicken and egg situation. How can you ever get “busy enough” when you are spending your time on things that don’t help you grow? How can you ever focus on the tasks that will help you grow when you are stuck doing monkey work like color correction?

Interested in getting started? Well, getting started is easy. We have a 30 trial to see if we are a fit for one another and a proven onboarding process that gets our team dialed into your style quickly and efficiently. Learn more.  

Sal Cincotta is a professional wedding and portrait photographer based in O’Fallon, IL to see some of his work visit his site here

Finalizing Files | 5 Part Workflow with Lightroom CC

Finally, we are ready to post the images for the client to see. For now, the editing is done! In the past four “Workflow With Lightroom CC” articles, I have stressed the importance of efficiency. User presets are the foundation for my efficiency in automating tasks and processes. In this final installment, I discuss output file management and the functionality of plugins for exporting and publishing images. If you are interested in slideshow publishing, printing and book design in Lightroom CC, keep an eye out for my upcoming articles. – See more at: Behind the Shutter.

Advanced Editing | 5 Part Workflow with Lightroom CC

Part 4 Advanced Editing

Advanced Editing

You are done with the monkey work and ready for the next steps before delivering files to your clients. Bring on the creativity of advanced editing. Lightroom CC offers quite a wide range of editing capabilities, as I have covered in previous articles. Now we are ready to see these in action. Let’s look at how to streamline your advanced editing at a proofing level. – See more at Behind the Shutter

Processing Files | 5 Part Workflow with Lightroom CC

Part 3 Processing Files

Processing Files

 

After the shoot is done, files are stored and backed up, catalog and previews rendered, it’s finally time to process all those files. Get comfortable now. Lightroom CC has made many of our lives easier with the intuitive hotkeys, ease of cycling between images and syncing adjustments. I have to be honest, though: No matter how fast you are at culling and editing in Lightroom, getting 5,300 images down to under 1,000 is rough. I’ve done it five days a week for years, and I still push myself to increase efficiency and quality.   I don’t want to compare culling in other programs or batched styles of editing in this article. I am a Lightroom guy, and I am sticking with it. Working with Evolve, I have seen various workflows and mechanics from hundreds of professional photographers. I learn as much from them as they do from me. You have to trade secrets in this industry. That’s what I am here to do. – See more at Behind the Shutter.

Catalog Management | 5 Part Workflow with Lightroom CC

Part 2 Catalog Management

Catalog Management

I am constantly trying to keep my digital photography process constrained to a single program. I want my workflow to be uncomplicated. I know Photoshop is the end-all program for intensive editing, but I want to get the most out of Lightroom before making the jump. In this article, I continue my five-part series on Lightroom CC, with catalog management. This is one of the most overlooked aspects of Lightroom workflow. Why bother changing? All you need to do is import, edit and export, right? Well, those are the steps to process work in Lightroom, but you need to develop a game plan for how the files live in Lightroom. This is where catalogs come in. – See more at Behind the Shutter.

 

Storage & File Management | 5 Part Workflow with Lightroom CC

Part 1 Storage & File Management

Storage & File Management

In recent articles, I compared Lightroom CC to previous versions and other programs, concluding that Lightroom was the superior total workflow solution for large-volume photographers. I’ve used Lightroom for years, and have continually changed my practices and refined the best ones. With this article, I embark on a five-part series in which I will break down a simple and powerful workflow primarily using Lightroom CC. Over the next four articles, respectively, we’ll cover catalog storage & file management, processing images, output methods and archival/backup strategies. – See more at Behind the Shutter