Just got a job offer to retouch wedding stuff

[sf]

But - it is all digital workflow, using photoshop, capture one, and raw shooter premium.

pays $12 per hour. I would be processing the photos from the camera, then retouching color, etc., then organizing them, putting things on DVD, sending it off by FTP for proofbooks, and designing the albums.

Sounds like I'd be pretty much doing everything but taking the pictures and signing the checks.

Is that lowballing? I know they'd pay someone more to do that. Should I ask for more or let it be?

I just need money. Very much.

 

[T_om]

That is pretty low. Like VERY, VERY low.

Most album designs alone are between $100.00 and $300.00 from people that do this sort of thing commercially. Some are MUCH higher, but $100.00 to $300.00 gets you a competent, if not brilliant, album layout for say, 30 sides. Figure on it taking about 4 to 5 hours to lay out a typical flushmount design AFTER you get the hang of it and get up to speed. Matted layouts are simpler and go pretty fast, but since they are simple, there are fewer of them for third party contractors like yourself to do.. the photographers do it themselves.

Last, proofing and converting is normally about $90.00 an hour.

If you are any good at it, there is plenty of work out there.

If it is something you are strongly considering, you may want to sign up on the Digital Wedding Forum. It is a paid forum but worth every penny. After you get a sample or two put together, they have a forum where you can solicit some jobs.

There are some of the world's top wedding shooters on that forum. From the US, Australia, UK... you name it.

There are a few of the members on that forum that also belong here, Sean Reid, David Sang and myself among them.

If you are interested, contact me and I will give you some more info.

Tom

tg.omeara AT gmail.com

 

[dcsang]

Tom's right 🙂

It's low for retouching. Good in getting the job but you could even up the fee and still be well under standard costs I think.

If you take a look at the rates Brian Tao charges (you guys are both on DWF right..) or anyone else for that matter; $12/hour is low.

Cheers
Dave

 

[sf]

I decided to turn that guy down for the job. . . . here is why, and it is quite frightening.

He brought me in for what he said would be a color test in photoshop. What that is, I have no idea. Or I didn't know. So I went down to his place for the 'color test', and I suppose he expected that I would study up on that topic (like color balancing maybe), so he instead gave me a pile of little editing tasks like resizing and layout stuff, and some defrecklings. I did everything as it should be done.

Here is why I have decided that he is two things (a poor photographer and a cheat) :

He provided me with a 2.65x3.5 inch image @ 300 DPI. He told me to take that image and make it 2.5x3.5 and fit 4 of them on a 5x7 sheet without borders or lines or anything. I did that. . .but, as you all know, I would have to crop the image to make it 2.5x3.5. One can't simply resize the image, or they will be warping the image and thus the subject. Well, when i cropped it, from the bottom up because he had too much empty space on the top anyway, he got sort of edgy and said "no, no - not how you do it" . . and I asked him how he would do it and if he intended for me to simply resize the image and he said "yes". right. ok.

Second, he gave me an 8.15x10.5 (or some similar dimensions) image, and told me to get that down to 4x6, same DPI and all. So, naturally, one must crop to do that. Oh, no, he said, don't cut up the image, just resize it. Ok.

Third, he had me defreckle a girl's skin, and made a snide comment about "ha ha, no 'bandaid' tool is available' - I'll have to use the cloner. Right, so he has been using the bandaid tool, which drastically changes the texture of wherever you apply it. He has apparently been doing that as well.

ANd the last straw : he didn't have ANY monitor calibration hardware at all. Nothing. So, he does everything the fast, easy, cruddy way. And he wanted to pay me $12 an hour to basically do everything. and I'd have to deal with someone with incredibly low standards as well.

No way.

 

[Socke]

This is one of the stories where I can only shake my head.

I'm just home from one of the persian parties where I shoot. I do this for 70 Euro an evening incl. a CD with some 100 images rotated and some are cropped and exposure corrected.

But hey, I do it mostly for fun, the girls and free drinks 🙂

 

[photodog]

Ah. the low end operator. One gets what they pay for and maybe it's good enough for his clients.

 

[kbg32]

But - it is all digital workflow, using photoshop, capture one, and raw shooter premium.

pays $12 per hour. I would be processing the photos from the camera, then retouching color, etc., then organizing them, putting things on DVD, sending it off by FTP for proofbooks, and designing the albums.

Sounds like I'd be pretty much doing everything but taking the pictures and signing the checks.

Is that lowballing? I know they'd pay someone more to do that. Should I ask for more or let it be?

I just need money. Very much.

Yes, that is quite a lowball price. Depending on experience $25 per hour and up to do this work would be more in line.

 

[kbg32]

Glad you turned him down. You don't want to build up a resume working with people such as him.

 

[pedro.m.reis]

I dont want to hijact this thread, but, do you know a good source that explains what and how must we do the post processing in the digital world?
I beleive that auto-(color, levels, contrast, etc) is not the right tool.......

 

[Will]

If you haven't done this before, do it for a month or two, get some experience under your belt.