Does anyone know how much a professional photographer charges per hour or otherwise for image correction time using Adobe Photoshop® (and © and™ if needed)  : )   or other software?  Lets stick to weddings, perhaps and not open the door to so many fields of graphics work.

A wedding photographer I corresponded with on the net said he is not in the “album” selling business but in the image business. He will offer wedding shoots with album or only with images on disc for the client to have printed.  This seems unusual but I believe is a good and fine approach.  He said he will spend much time in image correction and development into the image best serving the scene and mood of it all.   He said, “..of course, that is time which is paid for by the customer.”

Any ideas how much the charges are for such work?       Thanks.      TomDart.

Check out this site for some prices...

http://www.solidoxygen.com/s-photowork.php

Nongo, thanks..that info is helpful.  I wonder how this one figures out:
"Photo repair: $15 per img per hour"
The "per image" and "per hour" are confusing or I am empty headed tonight.

Thanks.       Tom.

That's a real tough one Tom....
I've done many photo restorations for friends/relatives....But, I've never charged them a penny.  
On some badly damaged family photos, I've spent in excess of 30 hours.  
Many others have asked me to do the same after seeing my work.....If I asked $450 for one badly damaged photo....I think I'd get laughed right out of town.

Restoration time can add up quickly....as will the bill...generally folks don't appreciate ( or will pay for) the amount of work involved.

So....I only do them for close family now....my compensation is the satisfaction I get when I see the smile on their face when they are able to see their long lost relative in that restored image.

Good luck!

**Tom, it probably means each image is 15$$ per hour, so if it takes 4 hours that's 60 dollars. I've done several repairs for family too, and it is horribly time consuming, and like mentioned, most people wouldn't pay for the actual time involved in this thankless task. But the ones I've done for family, they were delighted, even though they didn't have a clue how long it took...
It would be a great business if you had apprecative customers, who could afford the labor...  **

When I do the work I usually charge $20 per image, if its something big. But if they have many images, It usually gets knowcked down to a few dollars. By the hour, if its a lot of small things, usually $15 per hour. Most of the work I do is small stuff, nothing too intense. Reason with them, and tell them up front how much, or give them a rough guess.

Ahh...due to market willingness the pay is depressed.  This is what I expected.   My employer depresses my pay, regardless of professional skill he does not fully understand... or knows full well he can get by with paying less in that particular market.   

Yeppie, my work on family and "from the heart" stuff or others has its own reward and that is not in cash or any payment.  

This info is helpful and somewhat disappointing considering the costs involved overall.

Thanks.       Tom.

It also depends on the quality and the skill. Some people charge while they'd better start following a course in Photoshop because they are still beginners. These usually work slow, often charge per hour and don't deliver best quality.

Otoh, to do it right, one needs to invest in a good quality monitor that's hardware-calibrated, in software etc.

Most people's monitors are not calibrated. Therefore they won't  see those carefully controlled settings. Same goes for print. If you hand them a CD or DVD, they probably choose some supermarket print service.

So I guess it's best not to exaggerate. If you deliver the prints on archival paper, printed on a 8+ color printer, then show what you can.

But otherwise I wouldn't invest too much time. If you shoot raw, you can play a bit more with recoverable highlights (the brides' dress...ahhh!!!), and if you shoot jpg perhaps some curves and saturation, eventually a luminance mask for a few  "hey, this looks promising" shots. But I wouldn't start bracketing or cloning. In case you deliver on CD of course.

My Eurocent.

Attached Link: Dilbert

Ahh...due to market willingness the pay is depressed. 
This is what I expected.   My employer depresses my pay,
regardless of professional skill he does not fully understand

You should really, really read Dilbert every day!!!

Please. 

LOL

-- 
Martin

The going rate for commercial work is around £75 ($150)  an hour !

The more creative ones charge more !

@Onslow...$150/hr for wedding shots?....sheesh, Does that include photos for the divorce as well?  LOL!

Wait a minute.....I see a possible business opportunity....Divorce photography!  I'll bet that could get pretty creative.....

Seriously....yes, folks will pay tons for wedding memories....Macros?....not so....

It can vary between $15-$60 an hour per image.

How that break down (let's just call it the $15 variety) is like this -each image starts the clock with a minimum charge of $15. If it takes them 2 hours, you'll be paying $30.
If they do 3 images all within the first hour, it's gonna be $45 - even though they were finished in about 10-20 minutes each - because there's a $15 minimum charge per image.

There was a company around here that did nothing but Photoshop alterations that charged something like $30 per hour per image if that helps.

If you're experienced (and I REALLY mean really good and fast), you can get on with an experienced (meaning: expensive!) photographer. You could easily charge through the roof. Their client is paying for it, it will usually be on a per image basis (freelence as opposed to an actual employee - cheaper for THEM at tax-time), and the deadlines will be tight - which is why you can justify your bill. Ever heard a high-priced photographer say something like, "I work with a really goodPhotoshop/Finishing guy..." That's what he/she is talking about.

Good, Fast, Cheap - pick 2. In the paragraph above, they go by Good and Fast - your payment is billed to a client who doesn't care too much about money - this is a small expense to them.

I HAVE heard of PS guys who charge something like $1-$2 per image for wedding shots - quickie color and density correction, maybe a touch of dodging and burning, and occasional quickie removal of band-aids and warts. This is all "under 2 minutes per image" work if you're fast - you make up the money by volume - which is usually anyhere between 50-150 images to finalize. They don't do this for the proofs as they might have well over 400 images to start with.

Hope that helps-
-Lew ;-)

No point in under selling yourself . 
  
The clever ones insist upon a portrait session first to get to know the couple so they can make more personally appropriate images.   

No1 wedding tip is always shoot against the light with fill flash so guests snaps turn out as dark silhouettes.