Global or Pixel edits?

A lady called this morning to book a portrait session that had to be done today since her brother was leaving tomorrow. I had nothing later this afternoon so we agreed on the time, price, etc. A couple of hours later she calls back to ask whether all the images will be edited or not. My usual practice is to do global edits/cropping in ACR for the images provided on CD. Any image I print gets brought into PS for pixel-level touch ups. I told her no, I don't touch up every single image for the CD for blemishes, etc, only those I print. She then informed me she had spoken with someone else who spends 15-20 minutes touching up each and every image taken and provides them on CD. Long story short - she cancelled to go with the other photographer. My gut tells me it's good she cancelled since she evidently kept looking after we "booked".

We were going to do shots in studio and an outside location so we're talking several images. Anyway, my question is do any of you edit each and every photo taken in a session at the pixel level to put on the CD? Just curious if that is the norm or not.

Firstly Hi from a city pretty near you!

Now to the question at hand. Any image that I believe is good enough to be delivered into the hands of the client gets my whole edit/retouching routine. Not every image requires much in the way of retouching/editing, but if I am giving them a digital copy that they can put onto the internet I want it to look as good as possible. I have no idea whether this is the norm or not, its just the thinking behind how I do it.

solepatch wrote in post #16883781
Firstly Hi from a city pretty near you!

Now to the question at hand. Any image that I believe is good enough to be delivered into the hands of the client gets my whole edit/retouching routine. Not every image requires much in the way of retouching/editing, but if I am giving them a digital copy that they can put onto the internet I want it to look as good as possible. I have no idea whether this is the norm or not, its just the thinking behind how I do it.

Hi neighbor!

I'll do global edits in ACR on each individual image and crop for best look. She was asking for blemish removal on each person (2 in this case) as well as teeth/eye whitening on every image. We're probably talking close to 100 images given she wanted studio and location shots. Even at 5 minutes per image would be 8 hours of editing. Of course, I have no ideal how much work it could be so it could easily translate in to a lot more hours. My charge for CD just doesn't support that much work. I gathered that the photographer she went with charged about the same or less than I do.

Just wondering if it is something I should start doing which then I'ld have to raise my pricing?

I'd gladly charge my hourly rate to retouch a hundred images, at 15-20 minutes each.

15 minutes each, 100 images, that's 25 hours of nothing but retouching. Multiply that by your hourly rate, send her an estimate. I don't think that's what she wants to pay, though. She probably wants you to work for 75 cents an hour.

I do global edits in Lightroom for every image - often these are minimal if I got it right in camera, but in any case I can usually set it once on the first image and sync it to the rest of the batch. I crop every image if I didn't get it right in camera. But I don't do the full portrait retouch on every image.

nathancarter wrote in post #16883850
I'd gladly charge my hourly rate to retouch a hundred images, at 15-20 minutes each.

15 minutes each, 100 images, that's 25 hours of nothing but retouching. Multiply that by your hourly rate, send her an estimate. I don't think that's what she wants to pay, though. She probably wants you to work for 75 cents an hour.

Yeah, I don't think she wanted to pay my pixel-level retouching rate! It may have been a simple little zit that could've been healed in ACR quickly, then again it may have been several that required PS. No way to know without seeing them and I sure wasn't going to agree sight unseen. My prices aren't that high anyway and even it they order a print I may spend more time than I should. Retouching for prints is one thing, retouching for ~100 images that may never see the light of day is quite another.

I shoot a little loose for different print sizes, but still can run global edits thru a lot of images fairly quick.

I have a feeling the other photographer bit off more than they can chew to basically "steal" the job from me. I wished I'd asked who it was.

I don't really specialize in portraits--engagement sessions are the closest thing I have to compare with.

For e-sessions I reduce from about 120 shots to about 25-40. All of these receive standard global editing, close up shots receive extra attention at the pixel level. In short, if I return a photo to a client, the photo hast to be fit for print.

I'm just curious--why don't you edit the number of shots down to a reasonable amount--an amount for which you could say: 'yes, all of the images I return are fully processed and ready for print'. ?

It may very well be that her idea of a reasonable number of photos to have returned isn't reasonable.

Do you deliver every image you shoot? Like Chris above me was suggesting, out of a single portrait session I usually deliver 20 or so images that I feel are all good enough to be printed even if I know that the client may never print most of the images.

I think your first mistake is giving away 100 images on a CD. That's insane! Textbook shoot-and-burn photography.

From a session I deliver about 20-25 proofs for the client to choose from, from about 110-125 total shot. All of the proofs are finished. Like Christopher, I give all my proofs a standard global process in LR to give them all the same consistant finished look and then give extra attention to any close ups. Lastly (and lately), I run them all through Portraiture and that's it, proofs are done and usually ready for print at that point. I'll go back through and "polish" up any purchased prints if I need to.

If I get it right (or close to it) in the camera, I usually spend no more than 10 minutes per photo- and usually less once I get the look I want and batch process the rest. 25 images would be a little over 4 hours processing. Obviously it takes a little longer if I REALLY need to polish up an image but my print prices reflect that labor involved. My session fee covers my normal 10 minutes of processing for each photo and my print price covers the additional labor to polish up the image if needed for print.

rivas8409 wrote in post #16886272
I think your first mistake is giving away 100 images on a CD. That's insane! Textbook shoot-and-burn photography.

...there are clients out there who prefer 100 globally edited images to 20 carefully edited images, and the world is big enough for photographers to choose to market to one crowd or the other. There is nothing inherently insane with giving away 100 images on a CD. Some customers actually want this: others not so much. The OP encountered one of the latter. There are many good reasons to adopt the model you use and to market to the crowd that you do: but there is nothing wrong with doing what D Thompson does. I wouldn't go changing my business plan because a single customer walking away: but there is never a bad time to reassess what you do.

To answer the questions on the number of images I provide - most shoots include a studio and location session. In studio there are usually 2-3 different backdrops and 2-3 outfit changes. At the location there may be 3-4 spots for different looks. Add in possible different moods (smiling, serious, etc) as well. I'll usually end up with 125 images give or take. Sure I could shoot less, but I like to provide the different looks. I suppose I could choose only 25 or so to provide, but then I may or may not choose a "look" that the client would. Also, it keeps the question of "Hey, where is all the images you took?" from being asked. I would rather over deliver than under.

banquetbear wrote in post #16886964
There is nothing inherently insane with giving away 100 images on a CD.

Thank you, I value your opinion.

I suppose there are a few options - (1) shoot less, (2) charge more, (3) continue doing what I've been doing.

Real world example: I got my daughter's school pictures today. They are taken by an well-respected photographer in the area who does several daycares. When I first looked at the pictures, my initial impression was they were decent but dark. Once I realized I had my sunglasses on, I removed them and confirmed what I expected - they are .5-1 stop under exposed on her skin tones. I won't be ordering them.

Lesson: If you are going to hold yourself out to the public as a professional, then your effort should reflect it. If you want to half ass it and only fully edit those that get bought, your prerogative. But I guarantee you leave money on the table.

I have this basic concept of "the more you pay me, the more you get from me."

It works pretty well. I also go flipside and offer better deals to people who actually spend money on good hair and makeup. They can get a no-touch deal so I can spend less time at the computer. Not unlike a wedding where she's paying a lot of money to look good for everyone so she'll look good for the camera too. It's nice to be outside in good weather instead of sitting at the computer indoors. I can go back to working on my car or something.

Oh and for all you know, she played him off you to get that 15-20 minutes. Or he just said 15-20 minutes to get the job when reality is it's just 5 or less and he delays delivery to make it look like it was more work. Unless you were listening to the conversation and have an idea how that photographer operates, you just don't know for certain.

huntersdad wrote in post #16887959
Real world example: I got my daughter's school pictures today. They are taken by an well-respected photographer in the area who does several daycares. When I first looked at the pictures, my initial impression was they were decent but dark. Once I realized I had my sunglasses on, I removed them and confirmed what I expected - they are .5-1 stop under exposed on her skin tones. I won't be ordering them.

Lesson: If you are going to hold yourself out to the public as a professional, then your effort should reflect it. If you want to half ass it and only fully edit those that get bought, your prerogative. But I guarantee you leave money on the table.

Different business model. School pictures take a bunch, send proofs, and hope people buy.

OP's model is get paid and then deliver to that price. Like almost everyone else. The question is only what are you delivering and at what price. It doesn't make sense for OP to spend any more time than he must in producing a product with a fixed price. If he gets $200 for a disk, it's wiser to spend 10 hours to make it than 40 hours to make it. If he gets $1,000 for the disk, he can spend more time retouching because he's at least making a livable wage. School pictures calculate the cost/benefit ratio of putting out a higher quality product and they know that for every one person like you who cares about a half stop underexposure there are 8000 moms who just see their adorable little demon spawn and can't resist buying the photo. So why spend more money on training or reshoots or what-have-you if you're the only one who cares?

At the end of the day, school pictures notwithstanding, we all want to make pretty pictures but we're businesses and not charities. We can't run in the red and get government subsidies to close the gap.

cdifoto, While I understand what you are saying, I disagree with the notion that prices should drive quality, which is what I am reading from the OP. Your quality should be set. What you're willing to accept price-wise for that quality may vary or not. But every customer should get the same quality.

You may provide 10 images for $XX or 20 images for $XXX, but the quality, image to image, should be the same. That said, I also understand that some situations are different (thinking weddings), but short portrait shoots aren't an exception.