So you want to become a Private Photo Editor huh?

Well this is the blog for you! I’ll show you four basic steps to take as you embark on this new adventure!

I started my editing business 7 months ago with 2 clients. As I was growing in my business knowledge, I found my actual business growing too! In December of 2016 I found myself with 4 clients and 24 weddings on the books for 2017. This was great but I wanted so much more. By implementing what I was learning about marketing and business strategy, I quickly grew to having 14 clients and almost 200 weddings within 60 days! And now I want to share what I’ve learned with you!

Find your starting point and create a clear path for your new photo editing business.

First, you need to define what success will look like for you.

What is the ultimate goal for your editing business?  Are you wanting to start a new career path, are you wanting to supplement your income?

For me, I wanted to leave my full time job. So, success would mean that I would have make X amount of income a year to compensate for that. Defining your end goal is the key to actually creating your starting point in your business.

Having this end goal will help you create a clear path. Every choice you make will align with your end goal and get you where you ultimately want to be.

Your end goal doesn’t have to be money related either.

We want to make sure you are building a business around your life and not your life around your business.

For example, maybe your goal is to spend more time with your kids and watch them grow up. Maybe it’s to focus on a ministry that you are passionate about.

Whatever your goal of success will look like for you, we want to make sure that we are defining that now. So as we make choices moving forward we know what we are going to say NO to and not get caught up with just saying YES to everything.

Define your services.

There are many different types of services you could offer as a photo editor, and you are allowed to make the rules for your business.

Remember, you don’t have to be everything to be successful so we want to make smart choices around your personal success goals that we talked about in step 1.

Here are a list of services that you could offer to help you narrow down your focus and get your wheels turning.

You can offer culling services which means you would be the one to go through all the photos that the photographer took and separate the good photos from the bad photos.

You could offer basic color correction meaning you are just adjusting the light in photos.

You could offer photoshop retouching which includes things like skin smoothing, removing an object from an image, teeth whitening, or anything that may require extensive editing beyond just lighting adjustments.

You can also help narrow down your services based on the programs that you want to use or have a skill set in. The most common programs are Lightroom, Photoshop, and ACR.  Also, if you are interested in culling, a program you could use is Photo Mechanic.

You can also build custom presets for photographers as well. Helping them create a signature style.

Now I am not going to spend too much time on logistics of workflow because it is a super hefty topic, and we still have more things to cover. However, there are some logistical things that you may have to do differently depending on the program that you decide you want to use.

If you want to use Photoshop to edit, you will need the RAW files from the photographer, which means you will have to create some system to get those files to you. This could mean sending a hard drive in the mail as transportation of those files.

With Lightroom you can transfer files more smoothly using Lightroom Smart Previews and an online file sharing and storage system. This is the option that I chose to go with for my business.

I am going to say this one more time because it is so important. You don’t have to do everything to be successful!

You don’t have to offer all these services to be more attractive to prospective clients.  You can pick one or two of these services.

For me, I only offer color correction in Lightroom. It was simple and I knew that was where my strength lied.

How much should you charge?

Let’s talk about moneyyy!

There are two ways that you can approach your business which will drastically affect your income. Do you want to take on clients for a long term basis or are you wanting to have clients on a non committal just using you for a one time service?

Now you are going to want to think back to that success goal that you have. Which one would help you achieve that goal quickly?

If you are needing to make X amount of income a month, you will probably want to lean more towards a long term basis system. This is what I use in my business. This allows me to project my income based on my clients for the year.

As far as pricing yourself and how much you should charge this really depends on the services you provide.

I am going to use the services mentioned previously as examples and start with price ranges from there. There are really three common ways to approach pricing in service based businesses:

• Hourly rate
• Project or flat rate
• Per image rate

You will want to choose the best way to approach pricing depending on how much time you spend editing vs your personal hourly pay rate.

For example, I wouldn’t recommend using per image pricing for retouching jobs because you could be setting yourself up to spend hours on one image and get paid very little. There isn’t a one size fits all to retouching and would recommend you evaluate your skill level and speed before setting per image pricing on retouching.

• Culling – Typically can range between .04-.08 an image for the entire gallery. For example if a photographer sends you 2000 images and they want only 800 images to deliver to a client you would charge (.04 – .08) x 2000 = $80-$160. If this seems too low for you and your speed you could always adjust to being an hourly rate or flat rate.
• Retouching – We talked about this a little before but I would suggest using hourly or project based pricing depending on how much you feel you are worth. If you really want a price range I would estimate anywhere between $1-$3 per image.
• Color Correcting .30-.39 an image unless you are finding yourself spending more time on smaller galleries. Than I would charge a flat rate for smaller batches. This is how I personally approach pricing. I charge per image unless I receive a gallery under 130 images. Then it is a flat rate of $50.
• Custom Presets I would suggest using hourly or project based pricing depending on how much you feel you are worth.

Marketing your editing business to your ideal client. 

First thing to do when it comes to marketing is knowing who your photographer is that you want to edit for and saying no to the rest.

You want to consider being specialized in editing a particular type of photography.  So, you could specialize in wedding photography, portrait work, newborn, or even architecture.

You don’t have to be the editor for all types of photography because you want to narrow it down to a particular niche.

Consider what you enjoy editing and market to that audience. Knowing who you are trying to target as your ideal photographer is the foundation of a marketing strategy. It is from there that you will be able to build your business around that particular person.

Don’t stop at just a type of photography. Go deeper.

In its basic form an ideal photographer could be a female hybrid portrait photographer who uses Mastin presets.

Another example could be a female wedding photographer who has taken Katelyn James’ consistency course and uses her preset.

Knowing this information, I can now confidently use language to attract these clients and use visual elements to build trust.

The second thing for branding your marketing business is creating a website that is only for marketing your editing business.

It doesn’t have to be anything super elaborate but it does need to have a clear messaging that targets your ideal photographer.

One common mistake I see editors doing is adding this service to their existing photography website.

Your photography website should be used to target your ideal bride, not your ideal photographer.

I actually had my editing business on my “photography” page, and I saw a drastic increase in inquires when I switched over to having its own website and it’s own brand. I recommend building a simple website on Squarespace. You can get started with a basic website for only $96/year.

My final branding tip is to be you. I know it sounds so typical, but photographers want to connect with people that they can be friends with.  I have a personal connection with one of my photographers about The Walking Dead and we debrief via email every Monday about Sunday night’s episode.

This friendship builds a level of trust that surpasses any resume criteria.

One thing that really helped me when building this business is knowing that their are thousands and thousands of wedding photographers and I just needed a few of them to intrust me with their images and their business.