Top Reasons to Outsource Photo Editing

No matter which business you are in, retail, eCommerce, real estate, product manufacturing, or photography, you would know the vital importance of high-quality photos. To ensure optimum quality, businesses must outsource photo editing to experts with extensive photo editing experience.

This blog will cover all the basics of the importance of photo editing, availing third-party agencies for photo editing jobs, the advantages it can bring to a business, the basic difference between image editing and retouching, and some other crucial aspects. Read until the end and find the answers.

Why do businesses need photo editing?

Product photos are edited to entice customers, showcase the product features engagingly, and stay aligned with the brand identity. Real estate photos are edited to enhance color, remove unwanted shadows, and make the property look majestic, thereby acquiring more leads.

Wedding images, portrait images, fashion images are edited to make them look beautiful and appealing. Social media images are edited to make them optimized for the social media platforms, ensuring their formats, resolutions, and ratios are correct.

What are the advantages of businesses outsourcing photo editing?

To acquire more leads from the company website, social media accounts, eCommerce listings, and other media, brands must strive to showcase flawless images. Professionally edited photos increase brand credibility manifold, instilling a sense of trust and confidence among the target consumers.

This is the reason several companies outsource photo editing to professional agencies that have vast experience in high-end image post-processing across diverse industries. These professionally edited photos highlight the brand image and also give value to business owners.

Let us discuss some of the amazing benefits of outsourcing over maintaining an in-house team.

1. Utilize in-house team in better ways

   By taking the burden off your in-house team, you can better utilize them for other, more significant business processes. By outsourcing digital photo editing requirements to specialists, you can save a lot of resources on photo processing and editing. This will add up to savings on your operational expenditures.

   Also, you don't need to hire extra professionals since you have access to a huge pool of experienced photo editors with the expertise to work with global brands.

2. No need to invest in expensive equipment and software

   Businesses can save a lot of money by partnering with a professional team, as they no longer have to buy expensive software licenses, equipment, devices, etc. Professional third-party teams work on high-end systems and the latest software by default.

   Thus, no further extra expense on this account that will save up a lot of investment.

3. Significant increase in ROI

   By spending less money on photo post-processing, you can see a significant increase in your return on investment.

   Outsourcing agencies charge on a retainer basis, which is way less than maintaining a full-fledged in-house team or investing in expensive editing software. Besides, they provide the utmost quality with a quick turnaround. Thus, you invest less but get more value.

4. Focus on core business development areas

   If you are a marketer and willing to do all the photo editing work by yourself, it will not only hamper your productivity, sanity, as well as mental health, but will also snatch away a good time that you could have otherwise invested in core business development areas. Outsourcing image editing will help you focus on developing your business activities.

   Alternatively, if you are a professional photographer and are getting overburdened with culling thousands of images, editing them, and finally delivering them – think of outsourcing to a team of professional editors. They can not only deliver on time, but also significantly increase your TAT and productivity.

5. Get expert consultation from a bunch of talented photo editors

   Marketers get to work with a comprehensive team of experts to consult on your project, suggest you better ideas, and come up with custom solutions that is otherwise a challenging thing, as often in-house teams or freelancers lack that level of expertise and skills.

   Extremely technical editing techniques like clipping path, clipping mask, HDR photo editing, panorama stitching, color correction, reflection or shadow addition/removal, photo manipulation, and photo retouching – all these expert services are offered by these dedicated teams.

What is the cost of getting photo editing work outsourced?

So you have decided to outsource photo editing tasks, but how much should you pay the newly hired team? Will it be worth the investment? What value can you get out of it? Let’s find out.

• Basic photo editing

  If you require just some basic cropping, color adjustments, and shadow corrections, the pricing starts from $0.10 – $0.30/image. These types of edits do not take more than half an hour, so your dedicated team can deliver them within the same day. The pricing mentioned is just a ballpark estimate and not a fixed one.

• Standard photo editing

  If your business requires more technical alterations in the images, which will take around 1-2 hours to do the job, your team may charge you $0.50 – $1/ image. This is the ballpark pricing, which can vary from agency to agency.

  The types of editing included are improving white balance, stretching or removing/replacing the background, fixing perspective issues, lens distortion, etc.

• Advanced photo editing

  This level of editing can take more than 2 hours up to 5 hours, depending on the number of images to edit.

  This includes layer adjustments, clipping path, panorama sticking, HDR photo blending, ghost mannequin effects, photo masking, 360-degree image retouching, spots, dust stains, blemishes, wrinkles removal from the subject, shape sculpting, etc., using photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and the like.

  For such advanced photo editing services, you could be charged anywhere between $2 – $5/ image. Again, this is just an approximate estimate, and nothing fixed; the final pricing depends on the complexity of your task, as well as on the agency you have outsourced.

What is the difference between photo editing and photo retouching?

Photo editing and photo retouching are often mistaken for synonyms, but the two have significant technical differences. Although both concepts are about altering and enhancing an existing image to make it look more appealing, from a professional photo editor’s perspective, they are pretty distinct. Let us break it down for you in simple terms.

• In photo editing, the prime objective is to make the image technically accurate. That is, optimizing its size, shape, color, exposure, sharpness, contrast, etc.
• While photo retouching services are more about imbibing an aesthetic look and feel into the image, with the removal of blemishes and spots, improving facial features, correcting shape, lightening the skin if required, makeup application, removal or any unwanted object or adding an object digitally, so and so forth. All these are done to achieve the artistic vision of the photo editors.
• Editing usually requires less time depending on the desired outcome; maximum 1 to 2 hours, even less.
• Retouching, since it involves enhancing the image aesthetically, may take more than 2 hours, depending on the requirement.
• Photo editing is usually leveraged by eCommerce marketers to ensure their products are in the right resolutions and format, the cropping is done at a correct level, the file size is proper, etc.
• Image retouching is not just confined to commercial purposes only, but is frequently used for personal uses such as wedding photos, baby showers, pre-wedding photos, engagement photo shoots, newborn baby photo shoots, travel photos, and much more.

What types of photographs can be outsourced for photo editing?

There are unlimited choices of photo editing that businesses and professional photographers can outsource based on their requirements. Some of them are as follows.

What questions should you ask while partnering with an outsourcing agency?

This is the most critical aspect of finding the right outsourcing company for your requirement. Asking the right questions and doing a proper background check will determine the authenticity of an agency. Below are a few vital questions one may ask while searching for the right outsourcing partner.

• How am I giving instructions?

  See whether they have a reliable, hassle-free system to share your requirements, creative thoughts, rough drafts, feedback, etc.

• What is your usual TAT?

  Ask for their turnaround time. A professional team will usually have a quick turnaround time.

• What industries have you worked in?

  This will help you understand whether the team has the competency to work for you or not.

• Can you show some of your prior works?” or “Can you share your portfolio?

  Prior work and a robust portfolio will attest to their expertise and the quality of their work.

• What is the cost of your services?

  Knowing the pricing is a must. That will help you to gauge your expenses and whether you should move ahead or not.

• Do you offer trials?

  Make sure to ask this. Only with a real-time trial can you understand their delivery time, professional skills, and level of expertise.

• What are your ways of communication?

  How will you communicate with them? Over the phone, email, Skype, or any other digital media? Who will be your SPOC (single point of contact)? Ask all these initially to prevent any hassle later.

• What is your payment mode?

  This will give you an idea of whether the agency is authentic or if there is something to cast doubt on. Most agencies will accept PayPal or Card payments.

• What is your mode of file transfers?

  Will they transfer the file via a secured host or a cloud system, or email them to you?

• Which formats do you give while giving the final deliverables?

  This question is essential. The formats they share the deliverables in will help you to serve your purpose. So whether you use the files for print or web-purpose, ask the formats they will share the files in.

  Also, confirm with the contact person whether they can provide any format other than the standard ones they give.

• Do you ensure confidentiality and data security?

  Another vital question that should be on every business owner’s checklist. Ask this to ensure their handling of client confidentiality and data security.

  See whether they will sign an NDA with you, entitling the copyright of the digital asset to you, and also whether they guarantee zero data breach or leak from their system.

Some leading agencies to outsource photo editing

Even with asking all the questions mentioned above, selecting the right outsourcing partner can be daunting. To help you with this, we have compiled a list of some of the top photo editing agencies you can team up with and get assured top-notch edited images.

• MAPSystems
• ProGlobalBusinessSolutions
• Clipping USA
• Fix the Photo
• Path Edits
• WinBizSolutionsIndia
• PixelZ
• ZenithClipping
• Weedit.Photos

All these agencies are notable for their own expertise and have carved a niche for themselves in the photo editing and photo-post processing industry, offering world-class Photoshop services with an ace. Their reliable service and competitive pricing have made them the go-to option for business owners and professional photographers alike.

Considering the immense competition and demand from consumers worldwide, business owners or photographers can't carry out image post-processing tasks on their own. At the same time, it is mandatory to showcase neatly and professionally edited images that grab the audience’s attention.

In this scenario, nothing is better than to outsource photo editing to a team of experts with years of experience and diverse industry knowledge, offering professional photo editing services. To grow your bottom line and expand your business, keep yourself free from mundane editing jobs; leave them to the experts so you can focus more on your core business areas.