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How long does it take to edit a photo/photoshoot
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This might sound like a stupid question but its something I’m trying to figure out for my business plan.
I am talking about people here.
I suppose the first question is, What is an edited photo?
I photographed a friends’ mother’s 90th birthday, It was a present to the family from me, so unpaid. (mass, dinner,and a bit of the party, before i had some drinks myself. ) There were maybe 80 people there.
The lady was in a wheel chair so after the mass there was a scrum around her , hugging and kissing and congratulating her. I kept shooting as the various people got their congrats in. I did not use flash because it would be very intrusive.
When I went through the photos i noticed her face was getting redder and redder as the evening went on, so I had to tone that down to make her look her best.
Because there was such a crowd around her there was stray limbs etc in most of the photos so i had to crop many of the images
Again as it was crowd and family and lots of tears etc many of the guests, especially the (middle aged to older) women were not looking their best. A lot of wrinkles and bits of skin bulging from dresses etc, bending down over a wheelchair is not the most flattering pose for people) so there was dodging, cloning etc to make them look a bit better and get rid of some red faces and eyes from the tears.
There was some bad make up and pimples etc so a bit of airbrush and spot removal.
That was 0 upto 5 edits per image of just the congrats. If I call it 10 min per image between uploading, culling, editing and burning to dvd, thats 800 minutes or 13 hours for the 80 guests.
Then there were the table shots, spots, few wrinkles etc to tweek, and the mass , readings and lots of other bits where there was some editing
Call it another 3 hours total, thats 16 hours editing for a birthday party plus the shooting.
I could skipped a lot of the editing and left the spots, wrinkles,bulges etc, and batch processed the images much quicker, but I dont think the images would have been as good. The family loved the photos, although there were a few comments like ‘I look fat in that one, can you delete it’
What do you do? batch process? edit/airbrush only the main people and ignore the rest? or try to make everyone in the shot look as good as possible?
I may be slow airbrushing etc, but I’m not that slow, or maybe I really am slow.
There is a huge difference in time and that means money if I had been charging.By the looks of it you are doing too much processing altogether…sometimes at events like this take a few photos of people hugging etc but then take charge of the situation and ask 3 or 4 people at a time to stand in with the main person and take proper photos with a lot less processing, cropping etc, it happens outside weddings as well and you could be there for the day taking shots of people congratulating the couple but again you have to know when enough is enough…there is no money that would pay you for the hours that you put in at this event and as a pro myself you soon get the hang of doing enough to keep people happy….and then leave it at that…processing is the bane of any photographers business…a necessary evil that you try to keep to a minimum…if you are talking about 13 hours work…that’s 2 days really and you would be asking for at least €300 for a job like that…I can only imagine the answer you would get ??
Noel Browne.
Thanks noel,
I Know i would not have got paid enough for doing it (in this case I did not mind)
I guess its a case of as you say, doing enough, and learning how to take charge of a situation.
Something else to add to business plan.Just for what it’s worth …… do not get hung up on editing. When I began thirty years ago editing was never a problem; there was no such thing for the average professional photographer. You had to get it right in the frame. Even today, all I do is a bit of levels and colour balancing through Lightroom and out it goes. If I have to do heavy editing in Photoshop it means I have failed in taking and composing the image. In the film days when you got your negs back from the lab, a kind of “till roll” with the balance and density figures would be included. Sometimes on some frames the figures would be crossed out and written over. At a seminar one day Philip Hand was asked by a certain high profile photographer at the time ” What is the reason that there is so much over writing and corrections made on the paper slip with my negs sometimes ?” Philip replied “It means you had an off day when you were shooting”. I feel that if one has to do a lot of editing in photoshop the same thing applies. In the first year of using digital I also had the attitude “sure I’ll fix it in photoshop later”. I soon got tired of that and realised that my job was to shoot properly and get it right in the camera in the first place.
For me, life is way too short to waste it behind a computer doing hours and hours of editing and fixing. If you keep in mind the words “I must get it right at the taking stage” and keep in mind that the great master photographers did not have digital cameras and Photoshop, you will force yourself to be a better photographer. If you are covering an event and people are getting in your way and will not co-operate then its a waste of time taking snaps in the hope of fixing them later. Keep in mind also that one single great image that captures the moment and tells the story is much more superior than fifty snaps that could be taken by anyone regardless of how well they are edited or touched up.
As already said here, spending hours and hours on editing is not on as you can’t charge accordingly really. If I am asked to supply, say, 5 images of a presentation at a birthday I would be charging something like €220.00. That is €30 per image and €70 for attendance. I need to have maximum profit from that amount. I will spent about 1.5 hours in processing, printing, mounting and packing the 5 prints. If I had to spend another 5 to 7 hours editing the images because Uncle Bob had his hand in the frame and Jack managed to get his white head into the corner of the frame and that white piece of tissue is on the ground and there is a dammed reflection from the mirror in the background then there are 5 hours at €20 per hour amounting to €100 which I cannot charge for because really, I, as a person with professional expertise should have known better and should have spotted all these issues before taking the images and taken action to avoid the need for editing. That is why I was hired in the first place.
So …….. after all that, my best advice is that editing is expected in commercial, fashion and model photography and can be budgeted for in the shoot, but for the everyday communions, weddings, family events, schools, etc editing should be the exception rather than the rule as you will be eating into your own profits. Get it at the shooting stage and try to keep editing to an absolute minimum.
I can Agree with Gerry mostly,and as Gerry said most important is make sure you do best during shooting as even best editing wont help if you wont take care about composition, exposure,WB.
Can not agree with last sentence.
Most of couples (brides) they want to look like those girls from fashion photos:) If you not doing edditing today, you might be slowly out of bussines. It is one of the question from brides: are you edditing your photos?
For me edditing is essential, years ago we have a lab now we have a computer.
What is exactly edditing?
For me it is working on WB, levels,colours not remowing spots,or make skin plastic looks (it is editing but if you will do it to every person on every shot it is going to be crazy job:))
I will do more editing if need photos for website or adv.
Realy professional lab can do same job on your film as others in lightroom!:) (levels,colour,not spot remowal:)
Here is one lab.prices are crazy, but..:
http://www.richardphotolab.com/blog/” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
Batch processing – big helpThanks Gerry, Noel and Darek, for the replies,
I was not talking about tweeking levels wb or any of those things, or general composition etc. They would be a given.Its the difference between editing and retouching, so maybe my question should have been , how long do you spend retouching
those two sum it up best
So …….. after all that, my best advice is that editing is expected in commercial, fashion and model photography and can be budgeted for in the shoot, but for the everyday communions, weddings, family events, schools, etc editing should be the exception rather than the rule as you will be eating into your own profits. Get it at the shooting stage and try to keep editing to an absolute minimum.
For me it is working on WB, levels,colours not remowing spots,or make skin plastic looks (it is editing but if you will do it to every person on every shot it is going to be crazy job:))
Sometimes that could be making the skin look less plastic :)
PhotoSligo wrote:
I can Agree with Gerry mostly,and as Gerry said most important is make sure you do best during shooting as even best editing wont help if you wont take care about composition, exposure,WB.
Can not agree with last sentence.
Most of couples (brides) they want to look like those girls from fashion photos:) If you not doing edditing today, you might be slowly out of bussines. It is one of the question from brides: are you edditing your photos?
For me edditing is essential, years ago we have a lab now we have a computer.
What is exactly edditing?
For me it is working on WB, levels,colours not remowing spots,or make skin plastic looks (it is editing but if you will do it to every person on every shot it is going to be crazy job:))
I will do more editing if need photos for website or adv.
Realy professional lab can do same job on your film as others in lightroom!:) (levels,colour,not spot remowal:)
Here is one lab.prices are crazy, but..:
http://www.richardphotolab.com/blog/” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
Batch processing – big helpDerek, agree with what you do. I always think of it as post processing which is an absolute necessity. I suppose it is all these “words” that probably are the same but can be understood in different ways. I’m always thinking of editing as slimming down the person, removing unwanted objects, getting rid of facial blemishes, acne, scars, etc, taking out the boyfriend or girlfriend who have been dumped since that wedding, replacing backgrounds, etc. These are an added cost because I, as a photographer, would not have been the person responsible for them – if you get my drift ….. and as for permanent scars – I will not take them out unless asked to and will always point out that their removal will draw more attention to them than leaving them in. Slimming down the person can also cause the same effect! (LOL)
The post processing (as I call it) will not take too long at all ….. that is white balance (even though I will usually get that pretty accurate at taking), finer colour correction, levels, curves, crop, exposure balance, density, etc. A full wedding will take about 3 hours while a communion sitting take me about 10 minutes.
Apologies if I caused a mis-understanding.
redto wrote:
Thanks Gerry, Noel and Darek, for the replies,
I was not talking about tweeking levels wb or any of those things, or general composition etc. They would be a given.Its the difference between editing and retouching, so maybe my question should have been , how long do you spend retouching
Unless I’m asked to re-touch and a fee is agreed I do not re-touch in the normal kind of sitting. I only do it on commercial work,
fashion shoots and model shoots but they are in a different price bracket. I would advise caution in certain aspects of re-touching.
If you slim down the overweight bride then she does not look real as she appeared on the day. Even taking off the overhanging
flesh at the top of the dress needs to be limited …………….. which brings to mind the question I often wonder about – why do so
many brides buy the dress they would like to fit into instead of the one they fit into? ……………… anyway, that is a question for
another day.You righr Gerry post procesing is word.
:):)Full wedding – 30-40 hours:):) (shooting NEF)
With my post processing it is imposible i think, i have a target 15 hours to be achived till end of this year , bu does not look it will be possible:)
If i will do it in 3 hours i will be free man and happy as never:)!!thats a delicate subject I would suspect Gerry, and probably for a different forum
Derek, agree with what you do. I always think of it as post processing which is an absolute necessity. I suppose it is all these “words” that probably are the same but can be understood in different ways. I’m always thinking of editing as slimming down the person, removing unwanted objects, getting rid of facial blemishes, acne, scars, etc, taking out the boyfriend or girlfriend who have been dumped since that wedding, replacing backgrounds, etc. These are an added cost because I, as a photographer, would not have been the person responsible for them – if you get my drift ….. and as for permanent scars – I will not take them out unless asked to and will always point out that their removal will draw more attention to them than leaving them in. Slimming down the person can also cause the same effect! (LOL)
The post processing (as I call it) will not take too long at all ….. that is white balance (even though I will usually get that pretty accurate at taking), finer colour correction, levels, curves, crop, exposure balance, density, etc. A full wedding will take about 3 hours while a communion sitting take me about 10 minutes.
Apologies if I caused a mis-understanding.[/quote]
I think its the terminology, i was using editing instead of retouching so it was my fault at the outset, although the info on post processing was very insightful too , from all of you.
If
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