Question on Photo Airbrushing/Retouching

Hi Matt, welcome to the forum. From a photographers perspective I personally would want to do any retouching or airbrushing for the client myself. Most photographers hold on to image copyright and any airbrushing/alterations from the original "art" by a third party is contrary to most photographers contracts with their clients.

That said, some photographers do release copyright and this is probably your best target for couples that have had this service....although again, I would have hoped the original photographer would hold responsibility for what they produce.

Good luck with your venture (ps, your link didn't work and may need fixing)

?

Peter

Hi Matt

I am in the process of booking my wedding photographer and one of the first qs I always ask is do you airbrush the pics. Generally the response I have had is yes, a bit, e.g. if I have a nasty zit on the day that can be removed or say a bit of rubbish dropped on the ground in the photo which nobody saw at the time.Your airbrushing may go further than this, so excuse the ignorance if I am not understanding your technical terms.

As Peter says photographers may not be comfortable with you altering their pics, as I understand from my conversations with various photographers if I am looking for a CD/ DVD of pictures package I get the right to reprint them as much as I like as long as it is not for commercial use, but I can really "meddle" with the pics. However Im sure this depends on individual photographers terms and conditions.

As far as I am aware pretty much all professional photographers include airbrushing as part of their services.

And in general a most of them will be doing a lot of work automatically, thats part of what you are paying them for,

I beleve its only when you come down to dealing with amateur photographers, that their work needs a lot of correcting not just airbrushing.

Also from having used pro photographers for advertising with my fiances company in the past, all the good photographers are very wary about other people retouching their work and a lot simply don't allow it.

Thanks for the feedback Everyone!

I was aware that there may be an issue with photographers and whether or not they would want to pass on copyright to third parties. In our terms & conditions, we do mention 'Assignment of Rights' and state that all copyright is retained by the original user, and we have no right to replicate or use the images again be it for promotional purposes or otherwise (except in cases where express permission has been granted).

I know that photographers do a lot (if not all) of the retouching themselves, but I have been contacted by some recently who consider it a drain on their time and would ideally like to pass on this task to someone else if certain conditions were met (i.e. assignment of rights). But another question I have would be, for complex techniques (such as teeth straightening & 'double-chin' removal) - is this something photographers will/can do?

Thanks again for the comments, we only started out less than 6 months ago so all feedback is really valuable for me.

Matt

We retouch and finish all the images from the wedding as standard, and thats often 1000's. (Brides note what a good deal we offer, considering we shoot the whole day for £975! and thus are doing many £1000's of post processing and retouching for free) Besides that, our release would prohibit it without our permision. I imagine most other photographers would feel the same about the permissions.

That leaves in the main re-touching "uncle bobs" shots.. and they are often a nightmare to work with - You will probrably be doing all the basic adjustments that we also do as standard - coulur balancing images as a set, curves etc, except the starting images will generally be not be quite so easy to deal with, andf you will end up with a lot of rescuing of shots and dealing with things like exposure and noise issues that you wont be used to seeing from the Pro's

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This is where I think you are trying to target the wrong people. I'm sure some photogreaphers do get other people to edit the photos for them, but then the photographer would be paying and perhaps more importantly discussing what is required with the airbrushing people before they'd hand things over to us brides.

As long as we have a great result, it doesn't matter who does the editing work.

But I think it would be a very different senerio for a photographer to give brides unairbrushed and therefore not really professionally finished files and for us to then go and pay someone else to do the work the photographer should be doing.

and I must comment too, that editing out a double chin is not complex at all. I'm a total gooseberry at editing, even the most basic of editing. But I can edit out double chins so you wouldn't know they where there in just a few minutes. And I once put a missing tooth back into my aunties mouth as well - really easy to do.

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This does depend on the photographer. Some will include x amount of images that are airbrushed within the package price for the wedding although will charge for any extras.......This excludes occasions where the airbrushing requirement is down to the photographers fault. It is worth brides checking this out and finding exactly what they are getting. Generally images should not require much airbrushing as they should, as much as possible, be shot correctly in the first instance. Naturally though, a great impromtu foreground shot of the couple may have something random like a fire extinguisher in the background that is easily removed.

Going back to the original post, there is a market for this. Some photographers do outsource as their workload increases. Some outsource RAW files for initial tweaks. Its the same as the old days when a lab processed your roll of colour negative film.

Welcome to the forum Matt,

It depends on what you define as retouching.

All images are generally retouched by a photographer as in colour balancing, cropping etc, it's expected and sometimes (for example) I'll raise the yellow channel to lighten the skin if there's too much shadow.

I will go a bit further and remove anything that wouldn't normally be there or isn't desireable. For example, a spot on the brides nose, or a discarded coffee cup on the floor, or that hideous fire extinguisher and safety signs during the brides first dance.

I've even cleared a whole beach of people in Brighton whilst the bride and groom were on the Carousel.

One thing I won't do unless asked is double chins, instant weight loss etc. The reason for this is clear, the bride and groom and all their family and friends who see the image will know it's been done. If they specifically ask me to do something along those lines then I'll work that into my processing. If it's going to be for every person in every photo then I charge extra because it is a HUGE job to do. My day rate for that is £100 per day. With about 3 images per hour minimum catered for over 7 hours.

One thing I've always said is that bitter people can point the finger if too much has been done, whereas loved ones and those who really matter will love you for who you are.

I wouldn't want any external editing on my images at all. Purely because the majority will still see it as my work and judge me accordingly.

One thing I am worringly seeing is a lot of are brides contacting me for retouching due to a bad photography service. I've now done some 14 examples of this in the last 8 or so months. To this date, none of the photographers who I've contacted have come back to say I couldn't edit their photos but I partly put this down to a breakdown in relations between themselves and the bride and groom.

This year a bride tried to book me for her wedding in April but I was booked so the photographer is sending me the raw files instead for editing. So the markets there I guess. I know Julia Bioggo has a full time photoshopper who edits all her photos.

There's beauty in everything and for me, nobody I've ever photographed has really needed retouching. But I'm always happy to do it for them.

and I must comment too, that editing out a double chin is not complex at all. I'm a total gooseberry at editing, even the most basic of editing. But I can edit out double chins so you wouldn't know they where there in just a few minutes. And I once put a missing tooth back into my aunties mouth as well - really easy to do.

It can be an easy or complex job, however it is additionally very hard and time consuming to to do this consistently shot after shot, when the lighting, pose etc.. are changing

It's one thing removing a chin on one shot, when you need to make the next 200 photo's look like you havent been there, and additionally not look odd or different from shot to shot amongst the whole group of images is where the real skill comes in

Personally I think its a shame that people want airbrushed shots, everyone looks like they do, the camera just records it, you shouldn't really be dramatically changing the look of anyone> Sure if there is a zit or spot or rash or really red blush or sunburn, then remove it, but making people slimmer, younger etc.. doesn't really achieve much

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This is very much why I get so much on my high horse about photography. After two of my friends got wedding photographs back that are pretty much unusuable, I'm just disgusted with the amount of people who try to call themselves a wedding photographer. I also found it a very fustrating process looking for one, because so many just come across as inexperienced and amateur. My friends have respectively one set so dark and one set so light they are told that nothing can be done with them, despite approaching professional editing services.

The photographer I've booked also commented that as well as weddings he shoots fashion and shoots for a number of smaller designers. He said the amount of calls he gets from designers having to reshoot their work with a professional, after being let down by previosu photographers almost beggars belief.

S.

It's not just photographers either.

One thing I continuously find is the lack of understanding from customers. Particularly in the fashion trade.

I've had customers approach me with 100 items of clothing but use their friend as the model who has no experience whatsoever, they don't want a make up artist and expect the images to look like some professional store online (as you can do it in photoshop can't you).

Well, no you can't. ?

Thing is... if you pay peanuts, you usually get monkeys
I know some pretty mediocre photographers charging top prices, but.. generally speaking if the B&G's starting point is very low, then im afraid expectations cant be to too high... When you are searching for a photographher, or any other wedding professional that can only do one job a day (as opposed to say a cake maker who can make 10 cakes and deliver them all on Sat) bear in mind the following about pricing... In terms of price - I think shooting 1 wedding a week generates a decent weeks work, so dont think "I can do that it will only cost a few quid" think "I want a professional, what salary before tax would I like my H2B earn a week for doing a honest job", remember weddings are somewhat seasonal, and the cost of gear is high, and you will soon find out why hiring someone in reality ought to cost a grand or so

The alternative is getting a student, or a person not really commited to the profession, or a family member

If the photographer chooses to outsource, there are plenty of places that are cheaper than quoted above, but also remember editing is an open ended process - varying form next to nothiong through to hours spent on a single image. Most photographers dont outsource, because the way they edit is part and parcel of thier look...

For reference its worth noting that we could outsource: basic editing, creative editing, album design & layout. Any photographer doing all of this would be loosing so much of the bottom line either prices would need to increase a lot, or a non livable income earnt, or they take on "a lot more weddings" to make up for it. I would rather do less weddings well, and creativley, than churn them out like a production line

The fasion industry is a different kettle of fish - there is a chain of people who are all highly skilled who have a job to do (creative director-photographer, model, MUA, Lighting directors, post production teams, layout and print finishers etc.. ) The expectation in the top of this industry is for the photographer to output files into a upwards chain, not produce a finished product. Wedding photographs are different - we as a profession ought to be delivering the consumer a finished product we are proud of - I think if the bride is in a position of having to pay to get editing done, something has gone really wrong


The web/product photography industry is a different ball game again, and its really a numbers game where you are paid per product or on a day rate - again, often because of the numbers and for consistency, tedious edditing (like white cutouts) are often outsourced abroad, for a couple of pounds a shot...

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Its accross the board in society - the dumbing down of the trades and crafts has lead to a wave of prople who think "i can do that" and so they just start up doing it, with little or no training. Eevn in the professions that used to requre a lot of training have very minimal standards now, and things like job creep have been encouraged for years

teaching assistants - teaching classes

Nurses - doing roles that Dr's used to do

Checkout assistants - Selling spectacles after a few weeks training

Hi Again,

Thanks for all your comments. Some interesting points seem to keep coming up. There seems to be 3 issues as I see it;

a) The ethics of airbrushing and whether photographers/customers will want to keep their photos 'real'

b) Copyright - and the assignment of rights of a photo that gets edited

c) The standard of work, and whether it will be of high enough quality as this reflects on the photographer

I really appreciate people writing back to me (with good or 'constructive' feedback) as obviously the above will need to be taken into consideration for if I decide to approach the wedding/photography market. I know that most photographers would 'retouch' the photos themselves (ie colour/brightness correction) and this is not a huge task. The focus I had would be more on the 'airbrushing', as I might propose the situation where the Bride's mother would want, say her teeth straightened in 5 photos and the photographer either doesn't have the ability or the time to do this.

Again from an exploratory point of view, a question for the photographers - what would be your initial thoughts on the two offerings;

1) Contact the photographer and offer our services to be outsourced to should the need arise. All copyright remains with the photographer (as per our terms & conditions) and as part of our offer, we provide free revisions until happy. The photographer would budget for this and charge accordingly within their offering (or as an 'extra' to their customer).

2) Contact the customer after they have received the digital album and offer these services for any further photo finishing they might require. This could even perhaps be due to a referral from the photographer where a commission is paid.

Apologies for the naivety on this, it's a new company and this is a market I've not explored yet.

Many thanks again,

Matt

I think your only real base of business is to offer this to the photographers and offer colour correction as well.

Offering to the customers could be very difficult as the photographer technically cannot give out the customers details with out there permission. you would also need to keep track of the customers photographers have which will be near impossible to do.

You will have to go about advertising to photographers in a unique way though otherwise you will just be getting in line with all the indian companies that seem to contact me offering the same service.

Offer your services here: www.talkphotography.co.uk - in the business section, www.photographers.co.uk - same - and http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/

Also, in the "Professional" photography magazines inthe clasified

As WP said, you will be better off targetting photographers themselves.

When I press the shutter on my camera I've pretty much already decided how the image is going to end up after photoshop so there will be a large percentage of photographers who will turn you down. But I'm sure there's a lot who will take you up on the offer, particularly in other areas of work, such as fashion photography pointed out by WP of which there is high demand but also high standards.

Good luck.

This frustrates and angers all professional photographers I know, also...

Unfortunately, there is a huge increase in people who are buying a digital camera, calling themselves photographers, and charging ridiculously low prices for what is a very skilled profession. This alone should really send alarm bells ringing for you all.

If it sounds too good to be true, it possibly is! And the old addage applies more than ever: "You get what you pay for".

Do your home work, and you should be fairly safe.

Shimage.

I think you can only really apply your services either to amateur photographers or to very high professional photographers who would be expecting a very high end service.

In all honesty, I'm still not amazed with your teeth straightening idea. This seems to me to be very basic. In contrast some of the editing work my photographer showed me was much more complex.

There was one where a mum and dad were not speaking to each other, but later made it up and he made one photo of about 14 different photos to put the two of them together.

In another, which he said was published full page in a bridal magazine, he edited a small child out from in front of the bride and hand drew all the brides dress, including all the sequins and stitch work. He put in all the folds and had the light falling just perfectly, darker inside the folds, lightest right on the front edge.

He'd removed ugly light fittings and pictures from inside registry offices, including on patterned wallpaper.

You absolutely could not tell. And the photos where printed nice and big. Not little internet examples.

If you are going to offer this as a service you really need to be at that kind of level. There are a lot of very talented airbrush artists out there.

I love a game of "spot the edit" when I show couples my editting portfolio... Nothing better than when I show them the original and the shock on their faces!

But to answer your question Matt, I've had a huge number of Indian outsource companies offer your type of service to me, can't remember a UK based company doing so though. I like to retain the role of photoshopper/airbrusher though, I've made a huge investment in CS5 and Studio Computer for soley this purpose...