How To Choose A Photo Editor
When you begin searching the internet for a company or individual to edit (retouch) your photos, you may be overwelmed by all the choices out there. Whatever search engine you choose, you’ll find pages & pages of websites offering services for professional retouching, photo editor, photo restoration, image manipulation, Photoshop work, and more. All these services are basically the same thing: altering your original photos in a manner YOU choose. But how do you decide whom to trust? And how do you not get taken advantage of? Let me offer you a few simple, yet important suggestions that should steer you in the right direction. First, know what you want done to your image(s). Have a plan or idea of what you want the end result to look like, whether it’s color improvement, greater contrast and clarity, airbrushing out imperfections or distracting objects, or adding something like a nice blue sky, or some kind of special effect. Secondly, know what your budget is. Photo editing can be simple or complex. It can take just minutes, or many hours to achieve your goals. Discuss your vision with the person or business you have chosen. Get a solid estimate for the work you are requesting. Remember that image editing is not an exact process, and estimates are educated guesses of time required to perform a task. And time to complete a task will vary from professional to professional. And speaking of professionals: find out the experience of the pro, or company you’ve chosen. More often than not, experience will go hand in hand with ability to understand your goals, and achieve them in the shortest amount of time. Finally, DO NOT pay for work in advance of seeing the end result! No two retouchers are alike, and beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Make sure you LOVE the work you’re paying for. You should be supplied with your edited image(s), most likely marked (watermarked) so they can be clearly reviewed by you, yet not useable by you. The photo editor must somehow protect their work until payment, yet allow the client to view, and either OK the work, or ask for adjustments. Once your images are edited to your satisfaction, after agreed upon payment is made, you should quickly receive the final images. And one last word of advise: You almost always get what you pay for. It’s no different in the retouching world. Over the years, I’ve had numerous clients ask me to re-edit images they’ve already had edited by the “lowest price” service they found at the time. Look for quality, and expect quality results.
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