Retouching: What's your process and fees?

abbypanda wrote in post #16409021
I do that. On the guys portrait in particular (women's look awesome) we took a few poses, me showing him and getting approval with each one, which he and his female partners liked (viewing on the camera). I showed him the best of them via online gallery, but a few I left out. Personally his body posture overall the whole time was very unconfident and "slouchy" and my husband picked up on it big time the day of. The fact that he thinks he looks too stern is a bit odd to me. But in a few of the pic the way he stood my husb felt he looked unconfident and like he had to go to the bathroom. So I didn't put those up, but they are up now b/c he asked! I did delete a lot of them up front, but I save a few in case I need them for something.

So if you delete all the duplicates then you are showing them 1 proof of each pose correct?

I try to not use the term "pose" because the person could be standing (posing) the same way but I might compose the shot in various ways. Those various compositions are kept if I like them but I delete ALL identicals and technical flubs.

So yes, one proof of each "pose" if you define it as a composition rather than body posture. Everything else is deleted before I export them from Lightroom so I can rename the raw files sequentially.

I have no problems deleting bad posture photos or anything simply not good, although if they look THAT bad I'll see it in my viewfinder and won't even take the photo. I also have no problems telling people they looked terrible in those shots. I have a rapport with my clients in which I'm saying these things during the shoot though too; "yeah that was lame let's do it again" and "more GQ, less pissed." So really I know what's bad immediately, stop, give them a little more instruction/explanatio​n/detail to try again right then and there. The whole point is to make them look good.

My proof rate is about 90% of all photos taken unless we're going highly experimental (eg you don't get many keepers when they're doing a catwalk into a specific location due to lighting setups). The selection is then a matter of taste.

My approach is a little different at this stage. I shot a Baptism the week before last. I shot around 300 pics total, and ended up with 80(ish) keepers. I processed all of them, some in photoshop, and some in LR. But for me it's all about practice. I want to work as many files as I can right now so I can practice my processing skills.

As for duplicates, I learned that I should keep them until the images are delivered. And this last session confirmed it. I took several group shots with different families. I took 3 of each family, each the same pose. Almost all of the sets had one person either blinking, or not looking at all. So I had to take the head from another shot and place it on the one I thought was best. And at this point it's free, for now.

John37 wrote in post #16409095
My approach is a little different at this stage. I shot a Baptism the week before last. I shot around 300 pics total, and ended up with 80(ish) keepers. I processed all of them, some in photoshop, and some in LR. But for me it's all about practice. I want to work as many files as I can right now so I can practice my processing skills.

As for duplicates, I learned that I should keep them until the images are delivered. And this last session confirmed it. I took several group shots with different families. I took 3 of each family, each the same pose. Almost all of the sets had one person either blinking, or not looking at all. So I had to take the head from another shot and place it on the one I thought was best. And at this point it's free, for now.

The head swap is one reason I kept SOME of the duplicates, though not all.

I cull and do a light retouch after that. But only for weddings do I ever deliver more than 50-60 pictures.

Anything beyond skin softening, straightening, color correction kinds of things they pay for and I go back and redo them.

abbypanda wrote in post #16409104
The head swap is one reason I kept SOME of the duplicates, though not all.

That's one thing I will do before proofs so I can delete the extra images. It rarely happens and doesn't take long, and if it's a group there's a good chance it'll be selected. Head swaps on individual portraits I almost never do because it's easy to just retake the photo right then. Even groups are seldom done because I'm pretty good at bossing people around and getting their undivided attention.

cdifoto wrote in post #16409147
That's one thing I will do before proofs so I can delete the extra images. It rarely happens and doesn't take long, and if it's a group there's a good chance it'll be selected. Head swaps on individual portraits I almost never do because it's easy to just retake the photo right then. Even groups are seldom done because I'm pretty good at bossing people around and getting their undivided attention.

I haven't ever done one (head swap) but kept them mostly for the "action" pictures of them having a "conference, etc" as there were many with 1 person with eyes closed etc. However many turned out fine but I just keep a few just in case and then delete them at a later date. I can't see doing it on a portrait, that just seems a waste.

I go through all my photos and edit out the ones with bad poses, poor composition, etc. I then go through the images one more time and if there is redundancy I choose the better pic and edit out the inferior redundant pictures.

After that I go through the rest of the pics and do any necessary cropping, perform some quick basic adjustments, and then create 11x17 contact sheets to send that to the client.

After the client makes their selections I just retouch those images.

Doidinho that is pretty much what I do. In this case it narrowed it down to not a lot b/c it was a straight forward business portrait. We didn't do a lot of different poses on the single shots. (we did a lot on the group action conference shot) On the single portraits, just maybe a head turn or smile/ no smile, fix of the hands or posture, etc. They were pretty satisfied with the location and setup/ shots early on so there was not a ton of variety. So we aren't talking many good "finals" by the time I left off those with the bad posture, or whatever I didn't like. And I think that's why there was a hangup: I left out all the ones they hadn't originally liked or that looked slouchy to me, and just went with the best 1-2. As it turned out he wanted to see all of his.

I sent over the unedited proofs and they seemed happy to have them to choose.
Honestly what I have noticed thus far is that some people just have a hangup with "all the files" and thus far I have narrowed down to a certain demographic.

I think after this I will just give people a choice before the session and let them check it off on the sheet up front… Most are very easy going and without me saying anything say "so you just pick the best and we'll choose" and i say yes. For them, I'll fully edit my best choices and let them narrow it down. (this is what I prefer anyway) The folks who have an "all the files" hangup, I'll just do basic adjustment and let them narrow it down and edit what they choose. That may work best, just giving the option up front. I can see how some people would want the photographer to choose anyway and want that service, and some folks do get hung up on "all the files" and I'll just have an option for them as well.

In the end, I would be ok with whatever option they pick really.