How much is too much?

I shot a wedding this weekend in the mountains. About 2 days after I booked them, my gut was telling me bad idea. There images for the most part are really strong despite neither wanting to be in pictures, but...

The location had what I can only speculate as a gnat infestation. I don't remember ever being in a location with swarms of gnats as thick as they had. First look pictures were limited to a dozen or so, but their formal couple pictures literally have 100 or more of these little dust looking spots. I'm pretty sure that she is going to probably not review me very well, so in an effort to not give her any additional ammo, I thought "Hey, I'll head a problem off by removing all these little bugs!". That's a terrible idea.

Any other thoughts on a more efficient way of getting rid of them? the gnats, that is.

Here's an example

Outsource and get them all removed.

I wouldn't think she'd expect you to remove them all. As if they were never there at all. She can't possibly be upset with her photos because of something out of your control

Extended retouching of this nature is extremely time-consuming and outside of the scope of your wedding package. Offer to do full cleanup and retouching in a small number of files - probably the ones from which she's going to buy big prints.

The rest, you'll be happy to do extended retouching to eliminate the bugs at your hourly rate, or you can deliver them with just your standard editing and retouching.


(side note, the dust-and-scratches filter on a separate layer, and a very roughly applied layer mask to make it only affect the sky, MIGHT make short work of the bugs)

I clearly state on my prices page what is included in my editing, because it's come up before. In this case I would email and point out that insects and ask if she'd like them removed in some or all images, and that it would be outsourced at $x per image. retouchup.com could do this relatively cheaply.

Sometimes you have to accept that bad reviews say more about the reviewer than the service. I reply to all reviews positively. If I read reviews and someone is clearly moaning, if the product/service either accepts responsibility or makes some reasonable reply I ignore the bad feedback... unless there's a lot of it.

Are you expecting the bad review because of the bugs, or are there other things that will be leading to that review. As for the bugs, I would not be editing those out unless compensated to do so. Bugs is no different then a gray sky, or dead grass at the venue ..... not something I can control.

From a processing standpoint the gnats in the pic you posted are pretty easy to take out since the background is blurred anyway. Just duped the image and apply a dust and scratches filter set to 2 pixels and 0 thresholds. Load a reverse mask (ALT - Mask) and using a white brush just paint over the gnats in big swaths, then reduce brush size and get into the tighter areas. Again, because the gnats are against an already blurred background, they just disappear.

Now whether you should do that or want to with the rest of the pics is another story. I don't shoot professionally, so I'm in no position to comment on that.

Littlejon Dsgn wrote in post #18039617
Are you expecting the bad review because of the bugs, or are there other things that will be leading to that review. As for the bugs, I would not be editing those out unless compensated to do so. Bugs is no different then a gray sky, or dead grass at the venue ..... not something I can control.

The gnats aren't the issue. The wedding style was the overall issue. She hired me based on my portfolio, then started asking for some things that don't fit my style - shooting wide to capture the environment, different processing, so on. Day of, she was 1.5 hours late getting ready which cut our portrait time to 45 minutes. The couple wanted images up the mountain, which really limited us, so there's some shots she wanted that we didn't get. We did formals (she wanted candid formals, which I still don't understand) and then they were done with pictures. I mentioned some of the shots we didn't get and she didn't care. Overall, it was THAT wedding and THAT bride.

I posted their first look today on FB and got a text from her about 2 hours later saying she didn't remember agreeing to this and that any further online posting would have to vetted by her. I pointed her to her quote and contract where it specifies that.

Just going to be a headache.

huntersdad wrote in post #18039688
The gnats aren't the issue. The wedding style was the overall issue. She hired me based on my portfolio, then started asking for some things that don't fit my style - shooting wide to capture the environment, different processing, so on. Day of, she was 1.5 hours late getting ready which cut our portrait time to 45 minutes. The couple wanted images up the mountain, which really limited us, so there's some shots she wanted that we didn't get. We did formals (she wanted candid formals, which I still don't understand) and then they were done with pictures. I mentioned some of the shots we didn't get and she didn't care. Overall, it was THAT wedding and THAT bride.

I posted their first look today on FB and got a text from her about 2 hours later saying she didn't remember agreeing to this and that any further online posting would have to vetted by her. I pointed her to her quote and contract where it specifies that.

Just going to be a headache.

Sorry about that, sounds like like a bad day all around. I would maybe do 1 image so she can see what can be done and let her know each additional image is $X and leave it at that.

Some people are just more trouble. I've found it's just best to roll with it. I don't share photos online if they request I don't, and I take them down if they ask, because I was the same for my own wedding. I also help customers plan their wedding day, making sure they know how long things take and have contingency.

If they don't go with my recommendations I warn them in advance they're compromising their photos, but I'll do my best regardless. I did this recently with a bride who had a late afternoon winter wedding, not much time for photos. They also had a videographer and I warned them that it limits things. Surely enough the photos weren't as good as they would be, but they were still happy.

Littlejon Dsgn wrote in post #18039696
Sorry about that, sounds like like a bad day all around. I would maybe do 1 image so she can see what can be done and let her know each additional image is $X and leave it at that.

Yea, it was. It was that wedding you book and 24 hours later you're wondering why the hell you did that.

tim wrote in post #18039697
Some people are just more trouble. I've found it's just best to roll with it. I don't share photos online if they request I don't, and I take them down if they ask, because I was the same for my own wedding. I also help customers plan their wedding day, making sure they know how long things take and have contingency.

If they don't go with my recommendations I warn them in advance they're compromising their photos, but I'll do my best regardless. I did this recently with a bride who had a late afternoon winter wedding, not much time for photos. They also had a videographer and I warned them that it limits things. Surely enough the photos weren't as good as they would be, but they were still happy.

Thanks Tim. The overall set is really good, but I really fell like she's only going to see what's missing or what's wrong.

I do offer to not put anything online. In fact, my clients last night made the request to not do anything online and I'll oblige. She NEVER said anything about it. She planned her wedding and we discussed it. I even brought up that fact that if she ran late, we would be crunched. She swore she wouldn't, which immediately told me to go to back ideas. I came up with a couple, offered them as suggestions, she wanted it her way, so we did.

All you can do is suggest.

I had a customer recently who didn't ask for photos not to go online, as far as I can recall, but text'd me immediately when they went up. I took them down, of course. One of my more difficult customers, relatively critical when they saw some samples, but I worked through everything with them and they seem ok now.