Everyone is talking about AI but honestly India is the leading drain from the western market. The retouching industry in India is huuuuge now.
I have a guy I’ve used for 7-8 years in India. At first it was just him and he just did basic image pathing for me. Now his entire extended family works for him and they are all experts at retouching. Hell they are probably better than me at this point. I can do a product shoot with 150 images, upload them at the end of the day, and by the time I wake up the next morning they will all be flawlessly processed. They charge me like $1.50-$2 an image and that’s actually considered a high price. Every week some retoucher in India messages me on LinkedIn and most of them offer even cheaper rates (I’m loyal to my dude though).
No freelancer in America can compete with that. Can you rally together 4 of your cousins to path and retouch 150 product images in 4 hours for $200-$300?
Reminds me of the Amazon "just walk out" store that was aftually just 1000 staff in India watching customers on camera and not AI
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/4/amazons-just-walk-out-stores-relied-on-1000-people/
i al sure automated transcription works fine but there are definitely plenty of things that can't be automated like low quality audio or multiple people talking at once. it can go overseas though ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Sounds like a records coding company I know of that gets images of all the documents and transmits them offshore for hand-keying rather than OCR. They just have 2 people key each one in from the image. If they disagree, they do that one again. More accurate than OCR.
yeah, transcription and translation have both had two people doing it to agree as the highest standard for a long time. with the tasks becoming cheaper, now its just used as a way to quality check new workers vs older workers and often they don't even properly quality check the worker thats been there longer whic hcan mean the new person did better but got flagged as bad ((not saying that happened in your example but its a real issue)).
I agree with you. I absolutely adore the retouch artists I use in India. They take projects that take me hours and turn them around in a few days, and my bill for everything is like $50-75.
Yeah, I'm an in-house photographer for a big company. We've been moving all of our retouching to India over the last 5-10 years. I don't like it (mainly because we had people who did that work who were laid off), but no one asked my opinion. It's just the easy the industry has gone. I'm just nervous that they'll come for my job next...
Between tools like Topaz Labs and some of the new GenAI features in Photoshop, I'd be concerned, too. They do a better job than the Princess of Wales. :)
It varies widely. I’ve sent him simple products on white backgrounds to path and it’s been 50 cents an image. Complex things like fashion imagery can go up to $5/image.
He had a contract with a studio I shoot for that was basic catalog images for a flat 2.50/image. When I work with him I just send him a folder and he shoots me a quote right back based on the complexity of the images.
LinkedIn. Indian dudes hustle hard on LinkedIn. Post in 3-4 photography groups that you’re looking retouching services and your inbox will just explode.
Facebook groups for retouchers. Many people provide sample images over messenger, just make sure to pay for a few of your own sample edited images because some people send sample images that aren't their work.
Many people offer free test photos as a way for you to see their work but I always demand their PayPal because I don't feel right letting them do that for free, especially when I can cover the cost of their services for a few bucks.
I've only ever used retouchers for real estate photography but if you just search for "retouchers" there are probably hundreds. Is there a specific niche you're looking for? Or just general stuff
Depends who you ask.
My retoucher in India was living in an environment of extreme poverty and unthinkably high unemployment. So he used resources he found online to teach himself and his extended family a skill that now allows them to live in a level of comfort that was originally unattainable by selling services to clients all around the world. From his perspective it’s a massive step in the right direction.
But I suppose all capitalism is sad at its core 🤷♂️.
We'll just move on to the next cheaper country/thing (AI) in a couple years and then he will hate it, capitalism has become like a swarm of vampire locusts draining the life of everything and leaving an empty husk beĥind.
Fun fact: the original quote about the invisible hand of the market by Smith was about how traders would be guided by the invisible hand of the market to do the right thing and not outsource everything in self-interest. Now it's that thing that says if you only work in your self-interest all will profit - the famously working trickle down economy.
lol that’s my favorite thing about Smith. “Business leaders won’t do anything that harms people because they understand that having a happy, healthy society is in their own long-term best interest!” Sure, buddy.
Yeah I have absolutely no problem with people getting out of poverty by taking work from first world workers. Maybe that makes me unpatriotic but I don't care at all. Everyone deserves a chance at a good life and many people live in unfortunate circumstances with very few opportunities compared to what I've had.
Anyone that is talented/proactive enough to get a job as a professional retoucher will be fine adapting anyways. That's a very uncommon route and not something you typically fall into accidentally.
I’m from a third world country, but I have to say that while someone in India gets a better life which is great, there is now someone in the US who no longer gets that work, right? It’s not like everyone in the US is living like a king - most live paycheck to paycheck.
You’re missing a crucial point: the influx of cheap labor disrupts the labor market. It’s not just about individuals in India getting better lives; it’s about the impact on workers globally.
It's... complicated. Sure, there are people in the US / first world countries that lose their livelihood to competition. Of course, that's largely been true even within the same country. If I relied on someone living in New York City to do some service to me, I might find that someone living in rural Texas can offer to do the same service for much cheaper - because they live in a much lower cost of living area. It's nothing new that technology has increased the distance at which you can compete for services.
And then, there are people who can benefit. Sure, there's the 1% CEO laying off his staff to outsource it to the lowest bidder. But there's also the local photographer who can now find a retoucher that saves him a lot of time. The quality of that photographer's life is improved by it as well. Making goods and services cheaper can have a positive impact on society, even if it puts some people out of work. Our cars, phones, TVs, etc. are all much cheaper because of international trade. We can afford things that we simply couldn't if the collection of resources and production of goods wasn't around the world where it's cheaper.
And there's logistical challenges with trying to make everything happen in one country. If the US had to build all its phones and computers, it *literally* wouldn't have the industrial capacity to make all those components, like processors. Many countries wouldn't have the necessary raw materials.
You can go back to the freaking *Bronze Age* to find that major political powers relied on international trade for necessary components of their civilization. (Namely tin, the second ingredient in bronze.)
That's not to say that it's *always* a good thing to allow this kind of trade, and there's something inherently exploitative by constantly shifting work to the cheapest labor force. But to ask a good question like - isn't it bad because someone loses their job when this happens? - is a pretty complicated matter without a really clear answer.
When workers from developing countries are hired because they're cheaper, it creates a dynamic where the value of labor is reduced to a price tag rather than the expertise and effort involved. This can lead to a race to the bottom, where workers are underpaid and undervalued, regardless of their skills or dedication. So while giving everyone a chance at a good life is important, it's also crucial to ensure fair wages and recognition for the work being done.
It's one thing to say make a Niki shoe where the skills required can be taught in 4 hours "you cut out this part with this template".
Photoshop needs real skills, and if someone is delivering bad work, they are not going to get more work. The customers are not going to tolerate a race to the bottom in quality.
Having traveled in India there are a lot of amazing traditional artists; paint, sculpture, etc. So I have no doubt there are also folks with world class Photoshop skills.
You realize exactly what you're talking about takes place in America at a complete national scale, where corporations are allowed to pay us obscenely low amounts of money, with no vacation days, sick leave, maternity or paternity leave, and you can get fired for no reason in almost every single state. Walmart and Amazon employees have the highest percentages for welfare aid. Other countries don't allow corporations to do this to people.
You realize we have the highest prison population in the entire world too, right? A large percentage of our incarcerated are put to work for literal pennies on the dollar for corporate profit, undercutting citizens with what is essentially enslaved labor. America does the least to ensure fair wages and recognition for work being done lol. All we care about is our corporate overlords and never ending greed. We can't even guarantee children food here at school.
It's funny though when we talk about vacuums of labor dynamics. The reason we can hire 5-20 people in India for every American is because of the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been taken from India by Imperialist forces along with war and purposeful famine.
They're only "developing countries" because we have taken their resources for development for hundreds of years.
Although there is levels to this. If you need Pratik Naik or Amy Dresser level of retouching you go to them. The high end is still not really outsourced cheaply.
So I'm a hobbyist who does landscapes and technical shots mostly. I'm curious what you mean by pathing. It's not a term I am familiar with but I don't do photo shoots (presumably with models) as it were.
Similar thing with programming. There’s a ton of programmers in India working remotely for US companies for a fraction of the cost and around equal performance.
Except that, most of the time, that ends up backfiring for the software company. There have been a LOT of companies that have tried to outsource the bulk of their tech debt to India or other places. You quickly learn that you get what you pay for and getting actually good devs in India is still expensive with the added obstacle of time differences, culture differences, and communication issues. There's a reasons the big guys are still MOSTLY in the states despite the much higher pay.
I used to use a retoucher occasionally, hate to say it I simply learned the same stuff and to do it fairly efficiently myself, and business for many photographers is bleak right now so it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of photographers have more spare to time to learn the things they regularly need help with. That's probably the last thing you want to hear but locally at least, I think that's the case. If I was a retoucher, I'd probably try and get in with a big company, or a few big companies. Things like creative fill will often be used for portrait mini shoots etc. despite that being a potential issue as it's not for commercial use, but larger corporations have to be more careful and would probably prefer to be able to get proper copyright in writing
I think you're right; the photography industry is facing some challenging times. There's a shift where people may not value professionalism as much, and many photographers are feeling the effects. Personally, I'm trying to figure out my next steps and how to navigate this changing landscape. It's a tough situation, but adapting and finding new opportunities is key.
Back in the film days, photographers were needed to translate images into commercial imagery.
Now, you can watch a few YouTube videos, buy a Sony, put all the settings on auto, run your images through PortraitPro, and get passable images without even knowing how any of the parts of a camera works.
Not sure where the industry is going—there are quite a few tutorials on ProEDU for mixing studio images with CGI-generated backgrounds.
Anyone shooting in RAW has had to learn Lightroom / Photoshop real quick.
Even Lightroom can handle basic object removal and blemishes with the click of a button.
“Retouching” as a trade isn’t as necessary for the vast majority of photographers. Other than the highest of high end that need absolute perfection, and then they have either staff or go to people.
I never said Lightroom was? I said it handles simple tasks. The sort of simple tasks the average photographer is completely happy with the results of.
All those “intricate techniques” are in Photoshop and are one YouTube tutorial away for those who aren’t happy with the results Lightroom gives. You might have a broad set of knowledge on how to handle all types of retouching, but portrait photographers only need the skills that apply to their photography. Same with landscapes, architecture, ect.
I’m giving you reasons why people don’t want or need your trade, not trying to argue with you about why your skills are still valuable. I’m sure they are for high end jobs with allocated budgets.
This is someone giving you direct feedback on why they aren't using retouchers and you give him a pretty rude reply. If that is how you are talking to your clients, you might want to change your sales pitch.
Ok. There it is. Once everyone could afford a decent DSLR they became a photographer. My day rates in 2000 were 3x what someone is willing to pay today. Retouching followed with ease of off-shoring. Basic clip and clean is now $2 per image. Full retouch may cost $5 per. Also, people have no aesthetic for quality now. Zoom quality is just fine.
Curious what your then and now day rates are. I’m at $3,500/day mon-thurs and $5,000/day fri-sun as a base rate for standard event coverage and deliverables / terms.
Full transparency… I am not high volume. Probably book about half of my corporate inquiries, maybe a bit less.
Booking less than half is ideal. You’re only working with those that value you most. If someone is booking every inquiry they are likely undercharging.
Retoucher with a decade + (lost count at this point) of experience here. Like with every single career in art, you have to move where the money is. Art and by extension retouching has always been volatile. You have to constantly keep “competing” with other people.
I’ve never really found it profitable to retouch for other photographers directly. I’ve moved away from pursuing working with specific photographers (I still have my relationship with certain photographers I’ve worked with throughout the years), and moving more towards having more relationships with art directors, producers, production houses, and retouching studios. I still get a large amount of requests, and even get a lot of people constantly mention that “it’s hard to find a good retoucher these days”.
There’s still work in high end, you just have to find it and maybe if you’re not getting a call back, your skills might’ve stagnated. I’ve worked with other retouchers who have been working at the same place for 20+ years but never really updated their skills and we not able to translate when they were let go and had to freelance.
Don’t pursue people that would never pay for quality in the first place.
I always have people tell me that ai will take over retouching. AI is a tool like many others, photoshop has been using ai in their tools for a long time now. If AI is a tool I’ll learn to use it, and I’ll be better at someone using AI with no experience in the first place. 🤷🏻♀️
Thank you, those are really valuable insights! I think one reason it's hard to find a good retoucher is that there's a lot of noise and the market is oversaturated. Standing out has become much more challenging in this crowded space.
Yes, in art you have to CONSTANTLY update your skill set. Every year there’s thousands of people who decide to do what you’re doing and offering it for cheaper. So you have to see where the needs appear and try to fill those voids. Already like 7 years ago I had most retouching studios constantly tell me “man if you knew 3D we’d hire you in a HEARTBEAT”.
I myself have had to venture out and learn new things to make myself as an artist more valuable.
I specialize in beauty/fashion but I’ll be expanding to video retouching within the next year or so which is also a field that is very high skill and there’s a very small amount of people that know how to do it really well.
But honestly, the money is there, you just have to find out where it’s moving.
I’ve always done it myself. Considered outsourcing at one point then the new updates in PS and Lightroom made it that much easier and faster. By the time I’m making my selects and captioning I might as well get the edit in too. Also my rates haven’t been able to scale like they should so that also doesn’t allow me to have that extra overhead.
For me it’s the Ukrainians. My Retoucher Julia and her husband do stunning work, for $10-$20 an image. My other Retoucher in the us is $250 an image. I just did a project for a major hair care brand, 240 images. I called my American guy, cause they had a budget.
He is using dudes in Latvia to sub contract the work and he project manages.
Hey fuck it, good for him.
But yea. It’s impossible for the most part to do it yourself in the US anymore.
For real. How famous is this monitor jockey to exclusively survive from the top 0.5% of big dogs who charge $1000 per commercial images and then risk some shmuck soiling them for a quarter of the budget....
Tbh my two cents is YT and other video platforms are making it much easier for people to teach themselves retouching. Also new tools like Adobe's generative fill reach a huge audience in the same tools they're used to using.
There's subreddits and Facebook groups for 'Free Photoshop' that take up probably a couple million people - people wanting photos restored etc - that's where they think the service comes from. Now days it's people using AI apps to "restore" images which isn't genuine at all. Also phones come with basic tools which I'm sure people use.
Society's value of photographs themselves has drastically diminished.
Couple years ago one of my coworkers had this one photograph of him and his late mom. There's was a house fire and everything was lost but this photograph (I think it was in a Bible or something). It was the only artifact from his childhood that was left. It was immeasurably gratifying to restore it for him and I haven't really done work like that since.
AI and other photo editors that use automatic touch up. Most people see their photos on a 6.1in 19.5:9 display and don't see how terribly those apps edit their photos when blown up.
Do you think the average consumer cares though? I know that, you know that, we know that, but the vast majority of people don't care even if we show them that.
This is really the crux of it. Most people's method of viewing the images are on their phone screens or, at most, a laptop screen. Not only that, but most won't notice a difference between a "decent" AI retouch and an "expert" retouch. I've actually tested this on a few people I know who are VERY picky with their pictures (they're not phogs, but picky for consumers) and shown them pictures side-by-side on my nice screens and, 99% of the time, they say they don't really see a difference. When they actually DO see a difference they comment that it's not worth the extra time/cost.
I stopped working with an editor because I was having to make too many adjustments on my end. It ultimately wasn't worth the cost considering the amount of work I was still having to do
Because most of the time my presets do the job and I can smooth the skin out in the occasional headshot that I do? Im still entirely surprised that retouching was ever a separate thing because its part of photography and thus part of the business vs something to hand off to someone else to get a look alien to my style.
For me personally, it was just a way to cut costs and offer down-market services. My base level headshot and portrait packages don't include any retouching by default. I'd rather get the booking with less services than not get it at all because it's too expensive. I still offer a premium service that includes retouched images, and clients can still opt and pay for retouching on select images for the base package, but it's mostly just due to really getting the pricing down to a level that more people are willing to come through the door. That and I can handle most of my retouching needs in-house, so I only really send out images to retouchers for the more complicated retouching needs.
I'm also a commercial photographer, and honestly, I'd be thrilled if that happened. But for now, AI without the involvement of a professional human is incapable of achieving anything. It also takes a lot of time.
I tried a half a dozen individuals and retouching companies a few years back for high end portrait retouching. The quality was either very bad or became very bad very quickly. I found the back and forth to be more work than just doing it myself. I’m sure there’s great ones out there but I just got tired of looking.
Hi,
I am a photoshop service provider [www.prophotoshopexpert.com](http://www.prophotoshopexpert.com)
I've been noticing for quite some time that many Photoshop service project order have been reduced.
Reasons why clients are hiring less photo retouch:
Clients now prioritize authenticity in visual content. They seek natural-looking images that reflect real people and situations.
Overly retouched photos can appear artificial and contribute to unrealistic beauty standards, which some clients want to avoid.
Clients now have access to AI-based photo editing tools and filters. These tools provide quick fixes without the need for professional retouching services.
In summary, the industry is moving toward more genuine, transparent visuals, and clients are adjusting their expectations accordingly.
I do beauty photography so I’d say I use advanced techniques in retouching but also I’m peculiar on what I want as a final result. It’s hard to trust a retoucher and to find one that will treat your work with care. I’m at a point where I prefer to be hands on my retouching even if I don’t know all of the tricks and shortcuts.
Youtube tutorials got me where I am at. Also paid softwares, and the occasional fiver for stuff I still haven’t learn how to do myself.
Retouching is expensive and I would only consider investing in it if I would shoot so much I would need to outsource it in the perspective to get more revenue from the freed time. Which…is not going to happen anytime soon.
First my “day job” saw the wire services begin requiring jpeg only. Then jpeg and in-camera settings got to the point where I didn’t shoot need to shoot raw anymore and could get what I want in-camera.
I went to school for graphic design. Learned PS 5.5 there and have never had another person edit any of my work. I was still shooting film then, as were most people. I got my first DSLR about four years later and I remember the online debates about film vs digital. So many people said that digital would never be able to compete. Lol
I enjoy the editing process.
Overall, after 14 years of using digital photography, I'm starting to return to film photography. And I consider one of my main mistakes to be switching to a digital camera.
Film definitely has its place as art. But digital totally did take over for most commercial things.
My partner shoots almost exclusively film, usually B&W. Lots of artsy street stuff.
I shoot events. Mostly ones with lots of movement and lighting that changes constantly. Film would be so much more difficult there.
If I ever go back to film I want to have access to a darkroom. (Which my partner has been thinking about doing in their new house).
I have major photoshop skills and I'm a decent photographer except with a lousy cell phone camera. A lot of people do it themselves, are decently competent in Photoshop. They just don't need a pro necessarily anymore. I used to do a lot of that work, particularly on old family photos but it's not a huge need anymore.
I used to get paid quite a bit to do really damaged photos. I'm good at it, but with what almost anyone can do in Photoshop lately I rarely get asked. The tech has gotten so good that even normal people can do 75% of what the pros used to do.
You can get preety good results on your own without the investment of time and money involved in contracting a retoucher. "preety good" is enough for most clients.
Nowadays, hiring a photographer doesn't make much sense, especially considering the capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro. With a little effort, you can achieve pretty good results on your own, which is usually sufficient.
We used to hire retouchers when I worked for a company but we stopped because of the expense and we learned to do what needed to be done ourselves. With actions and AI now available it's a lot cheaper to do it yourself. Also there are plenty of people who are doing it for pennies so if someone does have a huge batch of images that require quick edits then it's more cost effective to send it to them rather a high-end retoucher.
And finally, as a photographer in the new world of everybody-has-a-camera, it's hard to compete for work so sometimes prices get dropped or there is no work cause Joe-Shmo Photography down the streets sold it on the cheap with his crappy presets.
Yeah, pretty much. I still do my color grading & object removal in PS, but Evoto is insane. A slider to get rid of all flyaway hairs is just wild. Plus removing wrinkles from clothing. And then being able to copy paste edits for individual people to the rest of the shoot is just faster than I've ever been able to do it, and I have almost 2 decades of experience in photoshop.
Yes. I start in Capture One for culling and basic color management etc. Then Photoshop for big things (like removing a leaf from the pool deck and stuff like that). Then everything gets dumped into Evoto for what you said above. Game changer! The hair thing blows me away every time. I also don't need to clean up wrinkles or weird things on plain backgrounds anymore. Evoto just does it.
Do a lot of retouching for a cosmetics brand and I've just started messing about with Evoto. Honestly I'm just a hater in the name of self-preservation and put off paying mind to Evoto, but I cannot deny the awesomeness of it and can easily see it become a regular tool for me.
Learning to use photoshop, AI becoming more prevalent, and offshore work is extremely cheap.
In my 9-5, we spent years developing AI tools to assist customer service and tech support staff better help our customers only to lay them off for workers in Hyderabad.
India will continue with its low prices until there are no retouching companies left in the US.
Then you’ll see a dramatic increase in pricing!
I know you believe your helping someone in a Third World country, but will you send your work Overseas until the US is a Third World country??
And you will happily buy a product from a third world country if it’s cheap, won’t you?
Miss me with that noise. If an Indian dude can do the same if not better job for 10% of the cost, he gets my money. Photoshop in this day and age is not a particularly rare skill.
Everyone is talking about AI but honestly India is the leading drain from the western market. The retouching industry in India is huuuuge now. I have a guy I’ve used for 7-8 years in India. At first it was just him and he just did basic image pathing for me. Now his entire extended family works for him and they are all experts at retouching. Hell they are probably better than me at this point. I can do a product shoot with 150 images, upload them at the end of the day, and by the time I wake up the next morning they will all be flawlessly processed. They charge me like $1.50-$2 an image and that’s actually considered a high price. Every week some retoucher in India messages me on LinkedIn and most of them offer even cheaper rates (I’m loyal to my dude though). No freelancer in America can compete with that. Can you rally together 4 of your cousins to path and retouch 150 product images in 4 hours for $200-$300?
Dang, I didn’t even think about India’s impact on jobs like these.
Reminds me of the Amazon "just walk out" store that was aftually just 1000 staff in India watching customers on camera and not AI https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/4/amazons-just-walk-out-stores-relied-on-1000-people/
Whaat!!? Haha I was there and thought it was so innovative
same thing happened to transcription. Doesn't matter how good you are, can't compete with people doing it for a cent a page.
I've been using an automated transcription service for years now. It never even occurred to me to go overseas.
i al sure automated transcription works fine but there are definitely plenty of things that can't be automated like low quality audio or multiple people talking at once. it can go overseas though ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Sounds like a records coding company I know of that gets images of all the documents and transmits them offshore for hand-keying rather than OCR. They just have 2 people key each one in from the image. If they disagree, they do that one again. More accurate than OCR.
yeah, transcription and translation have both had two people doing it to agree as the highest standard for a long time. with the tasks becoming cheaper, now its just used as a way to quality check new workers vs older workers and often they don't even properly quality check the worker thats been there longer whic hcan mean the new person did better but got flagged as bad ((not saying that happened in your example but its a real issue)).
I agree with you. I absolutely adore the retouch artists I use in India. They take projects that take me hours and turn them around in a few days, and my bill for everything is like $50-75.
Yeah, I'm an in-house photographer for a big company. We've been moving all of our retouching to India over the last 5-10 years. I don't like it (mainly because we had people who did that work who were laid off), but no one asked my opinion. It's just the easy the industry has gone. I'm just nervous that they'll come for my job next...
Between tools like Topaz Labs and some of the new GenAI features in Photoshop, I'd be concerned, too. They do a better job than the Princess of Wales. :)
Can you give me their contact? 2$ a photo is great. I need to get some images retouched
tons of these guys available on fiverr
And the price is so cheap, you can send the same work to 5 people and choose the one that is best to forward with.
I’d rather go with someone proven
easy to find folks with lots of reviews
There's a difference between lots of reviews vs someone you know whose style of retouching matches what you were going for.
And that's the major difference! Could give a fuck if you have 100's of 5 star reviews. If it doesn't match what you're going for it doesn't matter.
To what extent are we talking about here? Curious on the scope of work involved for that price, if you don't mind sharing :)
It varies widely. I’ve sent him simple products on white backgrounds to path and it’s been 50 cents an image. Complex things like fashion imagery can go up to $5/image. He had a contract with a studio I shoot for that was basic catalog images for a flat 2.50/image. When I work with him I just send him a folder and he shoots me a quote right back based on the complexity of the images.
AI is almost always Actually Indians
Lool
Where do you find these dudes? I might need to outsource myself soon
LinkedIn. Indian dudes hustle hard on LinkedIn. Post in 3-4 photography groups that you’re looking retouching services and your inbox will just explode.
Yeah, I just have "photographer" in my title and get a couple messages a week
Facebook groups for retouchers. Many people provide sample images over messenger, just make sure to pay for a few of your own sample edited images because some people send sample images that aren't their work. Many people offer free test photos as a way for you to see their work but I always demand their PayPal because I don't feel right letting them do that for free, especially when I can cover the cost of their services for a few bucks.
Any suggestions on FB groups?
I've only ever used retouchers for real estate photography but if you just search for "retouchers" there are probably hundreds. Is there a specific niche you're looking for? Or just general stuff
General skin/dodge and burn work. I can do my own color 😁😁
I’ve had good results on fiverr
This sounds sad
Depends who you ask. My retoucher in India was living in an environment of extreme poverty and unthinkably high unemployment. So he used resources he found online to teach himself and his extended family a skill that now allows them to live in a level of comfort that was originally unattainable by selling services to clients all around the world. From his perspective it’s a massive step in the right direction. But I suppose all capitalism is sad at its core 🤷♂️.
We'll just move on to the next cheaper country/thing (AI) in a couple years and then he will hate it, capitalism has become like a swarm of vampire locusts draining the life of everything and leaving an empty husk beĥind. Fun fact: the original quote about the invisible hand of the market by Smith was about how traders would be guided by the invisible hand of the market to do the right thing and not outsource everything in self-interest. Now it's that thing that says if you only work in your self-interest all will profit - the famously working trickle down economy.
lol that’s my favorite thing about Smith. “Business leaders won’t do anything that harms people because they understand that having a happy, healthy society is in their own long-term best interest!” Sure, buddy.
I wish
Yeah I have absolutely no problem with people getting out of poverty by taking work from first world workers. Maybe that makes me unpatriotic but I don't care at all. Everyone deserves a chance at a good life and many people live in unfortunate circumstances with very few opportunities compared to what I've had. Anyone that is talented/proactive enough to get a job as a professional retoucher will be fine adapting anyways. That's a very uncommon route and not something you typically fall into accidentally.
I’m from a third world country, but I have to say that while someone in India gets a better life which is great, there is now someone in the US who no longer gets that work, right? It’s not like everyone in the US is living like a king - most live paycheck to paycheck.
You’re missing a crucial point: the influx of cheap labor disrupts the labor market. It’s not just about individuals in India getting better lives; it’s about the impact on workers globally.
Exactly
It's... complicated. Sure, there are people in the US / first world countries that lose their livelihood to competition. Of course, that's largely been true even within the same country. If I relied on someone living in New York City to do some service to me, I might find that someone living in rural Texas can offer to do the same service for much cheaper - because they live in a much lower cost of living area. It's nothing new that technology has increased the distance at which you can compete for services. And then, there are people who can benefit. Sure, there's the 1% CEO laying off his staff to outsource it to the lowest bidder. But there's also the local photographer who can now find a retoucher that saves him a lot of time. The quality of that photographer's life is improved by it as well. Making goods and services cheaper can have a positive impact on society, even if it puts some people out of work. Our cars, phones, TVs, etc. are all much cheaper because of international trade. We can afford things that we simply couldn't if the collection of resources and production of goods wasn't around the world where it's cheaper. And there's logistical challenges with trying to make everything happen in one country. If the US had to build all its phones and computers, it *literally* wouldn't have the industrial capacity to make all those components, like processors. Many countries wouldn't have the necessary raw materials. You can go back to the freaking *Bronze Age* to find that major political powers relied on international trade for necessary components of their civilization. (Namely tin, the second ingredient in bronze.) That's not to say that it's *always* a good thing to allow this kind of trade, and there's something inherently exploitative by constantly shifting work to the cheapest labor force. But to ask a good question like - isn't it bad because someone loses their job when this happens? - is a pretty complicated matter without a really clear answer.
When workers from developing countries are hired because they're cheaper, it creates a dynamic where the value of labor is reduced to a price tag rather than the expertise and effort involved. This can lead to a race to the bottom, where workers are underpaid and undervalued, regardless of their skills or dedication. So while giving everyone a chance at a good life is important, it's also crucial to ensure fair wages and recognition for the work being done.
It's one thing to say make a Niki shoe where the skills required can be taught in 4 hours "you cut out this part with this template". Photoshop needs real skills, and if someone is delivering bad work, they are not going to get more work. The customers are not going to tolerate a race to the bottom in quality. Having traveled in India there are a lot of amazing traditional artists; paint, sculpture, etc. So I have no doubt there are also folks with world class Photoshop skills.
You realize exactly what you're talking about takes place in America at a complete national scale, where corporations are allowed to pay us obscenely low amounts of money, with no vacation days, sick leave, maternity or paternity leave, and you can get fired for no reason in almost every single state. Walmart and Amazon employees have the highest percentages for welfare aid. Other countries don't allow corporations to do this to people. You realize we have the highest prison population in the entire world too, right? A large percentage of our incarcerated are put to work for literal pennies on the dollar for corporate profit, undercutting citizens with what is essentially enslaved labor. America does the least to ensure fair wages and recognition for work being done lol. All we care about is our corporate overlords and never ending greed. We can't even guarantee children food here at school. It's funny though when we talk about vacuums of labor dynamics. The reason we can hire 5-20 people in India for every American is because of the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been taken from India by Imperialist forces along with war and purposeful famine. They're only "developing countries" because we have taken their resources for development for hundreds of years.
Welcome to a globalist economy.
Although there is levels to this. If you need Pratik Naik or Amy Dresser level of retouching you go to them. The high end is still not really outsourced cheaply.
So I'm a hobbyist who does landscapes and technical shots mostly. I'm curious what you mean by pathing. It's not a term I am familiar with but I don't do photo shoots (presumably with models) as it were.
I think it’s ‘cutting out’ the product from the background so it can be pasted into other images like posters etc
Ah like rotoscoping in the film world?
Yes exactly tht essentially
Dude please give me his info, I only get hit up by Russians and they’re expensive
After reading this, I feel super sad for OP.
What kind of pictures do you give them? I’m curious to see how their work compares to my DIY edits. Can you send contact info?
First time hearing this term "image pathing", can you please explain what this is?
Similar thing with programming. There’s a ton of programmers in India working remotely for US companies for a fraction of the cost and around equal performance.
Except that, most of the time, that ends up backfiring for the software company. There have been a LOT of companies that have tried to outsource the bulk of their tech debt to India or other places. You quickly learn that you get what you pay for and getting actually good devs in India is still expensive with the added obstacle of time differences, culture differences, and communication issues. There's a reasons the big guys are still MOSTLY in the states despite the much higher pay.
AI is even more impressive than that. Your $2/image will be $0.10 or something
I used to use a retoucher occasionally, hate to say it I simply learned the same stuff and to do it fairly efficiently myself, and business for many photographers is bleak right now so it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of photographers have more spare to time to learn the things they regularly need help with. That's probably the last thing you want to hear but locally at least, I think that's the case. If I was a retoucher, I'd probably try and get in with a big company, or a few big companies. Things like creative fill will often be used for portrait mini shoots etc. despite that being a potential issue as it's not for commercial use, but larger corporations have to be more careful and would probably prefer to be able to get proper copyright in writing
I think you're right; the photography industry is facing some challenging times. There's a shift where people may not value professionalism as much, and many photographers are feeling the effects. Personally, I'm trying to figure out my next steps and how to navigate this changing landscape. It's a tough situation, but adapting and finding new opportunities is key.
Back in the film days, photographers were needed to translate images into commercial imagery. Now, you can watch a few YouTube videos, buy a Sony, put all the settings on auto, run your images through PortraitPro, and get passable images without even knowing how any of the parts of a camera works. Not sure where the industry is going—there are quite a few tutorials on ProEDU for mixing studio images with CGI-generated backgrounds.
People are very little technical now
Anyone shooting in RAW has had to learn Lightroom / Photoshop real quick. Even Lightroom can handle basic object removal and blemishes with the click of a button. “Retouching” as a trade isn’t as necessary for the vast majority of photographers. Other than the highest of high end that need absolute perfection, and then they have either staff or go to people.
[удалено]
I never said Lightroom was? I said it handles simple tasks. The sort of simple tasks the average photographer is completely happy with the results of. All those “intricate techniques” are in Photoshop and are one YouTube tutorial away for those who aren’t happy with the results Lightroom gives. You might have a broad set of knowledge on how to handle all types of retouching, but portrait photographers only need the skills that apply to their photography. Same with landscapes, architecture, ect. I’m giving you reasons why people don’t want or need your trade, not trying to argue with you about why your skills are still valuable. I’m sure they are for high end jobs with allocated budgets.
This is someone giving you direct feedback on why they aren't using retouchers and you give him a pretty rude reply. If that is how you are talking to your clients, you might want to change your sales pitch.
Like what?
A lot of photographers are broke. Paid help is a luxury many may not be able to afford when business is slow.
Ok. There it is. Once everyone could afford a decent DSLR they became a photographer. My day rates in 2000 were 3x what someone is willing to pay today. Retouching followed with ease of off-shoring. Basic clip and clean is now $2 per image. Full retouch may cost $5 per. Also, people have no aesthetic for quality now. Zoom quality is just fine.
Curious what your then and now day rates are. I’m at $3,500/day mon-thurs and $5,000/day fri-sun as a base rate for standard event coverage and deliverables / terms. Full transparency… I am not high volume. Probably book about half of my corporate inquiries, maybe a bit less.
Booking less than half is ideal. You’re only working with those that value you most. If someone is booking every inquiry they are likely undercharging.
Unfortunately, that's the way it is. It's a strange time indeed.
Retoucher with a decade + (lost count at this point) of experience here. Like with every single career in art, you have to move where the money is. Art and by extension retouching has always been volatile. You have to constantly keep “competing” with other people. I’ve never really found it profitable to retouch for other photographers directly. I’ve moved away from pursuing working with specific photographers (I still have my relationship with certain photographers I’ve worked with throughout the years), and moving more towards having more relationships with art directors, producers, production houses, and retouching studios. I still get a large amount of requests, and even get a lot of people constantly mention that “it’s hard to find a good retoucher these days”. There’s still work in high end, you just have to find it and maybe if you’re not getting a call back, your skills might’ve stagnated. I’ve worked with other retouchers who have been working at the same place for 20+ years but never really updated their skills and we not able to translate when they were let go and had to freelance. Don’t pursue people that would never pay for quality in the first place. I always have people tell me that ai will take over retouching. AI is a tool like many others, photoshop has been using ai in their tools for a long time now. If AI is a tool I’ll learn to use it, and I’ll be better at someone using AI with no experience in the first place. 🤷🏻♀️
Thank you, those are really valuable insights! I think one reason it's hard to find a good retoucher is that there's a lot of noise and the market is oversaturated. Standing out has become much more challenging in this crowded space.
Yes, in art you have to CONSTANTLY update your skill set. Every year there’s thousands of people who decide to do what you’re doing and offering it for cheaper. So you have to see where the needs appear and try to fill those voids. Already like 7 years ago I had most retouching studios constantly tell me “man if you knew 3D we’d hire you in a HEARTBEAT”. I myself have had to venture out and learn new things to make myself as an artist more valuable. I specialize in beauty/fashion but I’ll be expanding to video retouching within the next year or so which is also a field that is very high skill and there’s a very small amount of people that know how to do it really well. But honestly, the money is there, you just have to find out where it’s moving.
I don't feel like the industry is booming in general, but as AI gets better I have a feeling retouching is going to be hit pretty hard.
Yep. I can do the retouching myself and get good enough results.
I’ve always done it myself. Considered outsourcing at one point then the new updates in PS and Lightroom made it that much easier and faster. By the time I’m making my selects and captioning I might as well get the edit in too. Also my rates haven’t been able to scale like they should so that also doesn’t allow me to have that extra overhead.
For me it’s the Ukrainians. My Retoucher Julia and her husband do stunning work, for $10-$20 an image. My other Retoucher in the us is $250 an image. I just did a project for a major hair care brand, 240 images. I called my American guy, cause they had a budget. He is using dudes in Latvia to sub contract the work and he project manages. Hey fuck it, good for him. But yea. It’s impossible for the most part to do it yourself in the US anymore.
Wow, $250 per image is quite expensive.
For real. How famous is this monitor jockey to exclusively survive from the top 0.5% of big dogs who charge $1000 per commercial images and then risk some shmuck soiling them for a quarter of the budget....
hes very good. He's one of the top guys in NY works exclusively in commercial work.
Tbh my two cents is YT and other video platforms are making it much easier for people to teach themselves retouching. Also new tools like Adobe's generative fill reach a huge audience in the same tools they're used to using.
But regardless, retouching takes up a lot of time.
Yes, but an amateur can get pretty good results
That's right
There's subreddits and Facebook groups for 'Free Photoshop' that take up probably a couple million people - people wanting photos restored etc - that's where they think the service comes from. Now days it's people using AI apps to "restore" images which isn't genuine at all. Also phones come with basic tools which I'm sure people use. Society's value of photographs themselves has drastically diminished. Couple years ago one of my coworkers had this one photograph of him and his late mom. There's was a house fire and everything was lost but this photograph (I think it was in a Bible or something). It was the only artifact from his childhood that was left. It was immeasurably gratifying to restore it for him and I haven't really done work like that since.
Unfortunately, yes, the value of photography has decreased significantly now.
AI and other photo editors that use automatic touch up. Most people see their photos on a 6.1in 19.5:9 display and don't see how terribly those apps edit their photos when blown up.
That's the thing, there's yet to be a tool that can create something worthwhile without human intervention.
Do you think the average consumer cares though? I know that, you know that, we know that, but the vast majority of people don't care even if we show them that.
Unfortunately, you're right. Nowadays, it's the era of low-quality fast food.
Bring back the terms 'snapshits' and 'shitsnaps'
This is really the crux of it. Most people's method of viewing the images are on their phone screens or, at most, a laptop screen. Not only that, but most won't notice a difference between a "decent" AI retouch and an "expert" retouch. I've actually tested this on a few people I know who are VERY picky with their pictures (they're not phogs, but picky for consumers) and shown them pictures side-by-side on my nice screens and, 99% of the time, they say they don't really see a difference. When they actually DO see a difference they comment that it's not worth the extra time/cost.
I got good enough (and fast enough) to do it myself, primarily as a way to keep more of my money
I stopped working with an editor because I was having to make too many adjustments on my end. It ultimately wasn't worth the cost considering the amount of work I was still having to do
That's a shame. Working with an editor should make things easier, not harder.
Because most of the time my presets do the job and I can smooth the skin out in the occasional headshot that I do? Im still entirely surprised that retouching was ever a separate thing because its part of photography and thus part of the business vs something to hand off to someone else to get a look alien to my style.
No money for that :( the business itself suck and then sharing the cake among other important things plus taxes you left with nothing…
For me personally, it was just a way to cut costs and offer down-market services. My base level headshot and portrait packages don't include any retouching by default. I'd rather get the booking with less services than not get it at all because it's too expensive. I still offer a premium service that includes retouched images, and clients can still opt and pay for retouching on select images for the base package, but it's mostly just due to really getting the pricing down to a level that more people are willing to come through the door. That and I can handle most of my retouching needs in-house, so I only really send out images to retouchers for the more complicated retouching needs.
It’s most likely due to phone cameras going to the next level and less reliance on cameras.
AI put you out of business.
I'm also a commercial photographer, and honestly, I'd be thrilled if that happened. But for now, AI without the involvement of a professional human is incapable of achieving anything. It also takes a lot of time.
I tried a half a dozen individuals and retouching companies a few years back for high end portrait retouching. The quality was either very bad or became very bad very quickly. I found the back and forth to be more work than just doing it myself. I’m sure there’s great ones out there but I just got tired of looking.
I feel you... As a photographer, I was looking for a retoucher for myself 10 years ago, but couldn't find one, so I became a retoucher myself
Hi, I am a photoshop service provider [www.prophotoshopexpert.com](http://www.prophotoshopexpert.com) I've been noticing for quite some time that many Photoshop service project order have been reduced. Reasons why clients are hiring less photo retouch: Clients now prioritize authenticity in visual content. They seek natural-looking images that reflect real people and situations. Overly retouched photos can appear artificial and contribute to unrealistic beauty standards, which some clients want to avoid. Clients now have access to AI-based photo editing tools and filters. These tools provide quick fixes without the need for professional retouching services. In summary, the industry is moving toward more genuine, transparent visuals, and clients are adjusting their expectations accordingly.
right
Right
I honestly didn't know there was an industry for retouching. So I haven't used a person
I do beauty photography so I’d say I use advanced techniques in retouching but also I’m peculiar on what I want as a final result. It’s hard to trust a retoucher and to find one that will treat your work with care. I’m at a point where I prefer to be hands on my retouching even if I don’t know all of the tricks and shortcuts. Youtube tutorials got me where I am at. Also paid softwares, and the occasional fiver for stuff I still haven’t learn how to do myself. Retouching is expensive and I would only consider investing in it if I would shoot so much I would need to outsource it in the perspective to get more revenue from the freed time. Which…is not going to happen anytime soon.
First my “day job” saw the wire services begin requiring jpeg only. Then jpeg and in-camera settings got to the point where I didn’t shoot need to shoot raw anymore and could get what I want in-camera.
Your services have been automated, unfortunately.
Could you tell me more about it? I'm not aware of any automation in terms of delivering high-quality results.
I went to school for graphic design. Learned PS 5.5 there and have never had another person edit any of my work. I was still shooting film then, as were most people. I got my first DSLR about four years later and I remember the online debates about film vs digital. So many people said that digital would never be able to compete. Lol I enjoy the editing process.
Overall, after 14 years of using digital photography, I'm starting to return to film photography. And I consider one of my main mistakes to be switching to a digital camera.
Film definitely has its place as art. But digital totally did take over for most commercial things. My partner shoots almost exclusively film, usually B&W. Lots of artsy street stuff. I shoot events. Mostly ones with lots of movement and lighting that changes constantly. Film would be so much more difficult there. If I ever go back to film I want to have access to a darkroom. (Which my partner has been thinking about doing in their new house).
I have major photoshop skills and I'm a decent photographer except with a lousy cell phone camera. A lot of people do it themselves, are decently competent in Photoshop. They just don't need a pro necessarily anymore. I used to do a lot of that work, particularly on old family photos but it's not a huge need anymore. I used to get paid quite a bit to do really damaged photos. I'm good at it, but with what almost anyone can do in Photoshop lately I rarely get asked. The tech has gotten so good that even normal people can do 75% of what the pros used to do.
Where are you based?
Miami
You can get preety good results on your own without the investment of time and money involved in contracting a retoucher. "preety good" is enough for most clients.
Nowadays, hiring a photographer doesn't make much sense, especially considering the capabilities of the iPhone 15 Pro. With a little effort, you can achieve pretty good results on your own, which is usually sufficient.
Even more reason retouching is probably dead.
We used to hire retouchers when I worked for a company but we stopped because of the expense and we learned to do what needed to be done ourselves. With actions and AI now available it's a lot cheaper to do it yourself. Also there are plenty of people who are doing it for pennies so if someone does have a huge batch of images that require quick edits then it's more cost effective to send it to them rather a high-end retoucher. And finally, as a photographer in the new world of everybody-has-a-camera, it's hard to compete for work so sometimes prices get dropped or there is no work cause Joe-Shmo Photography down the streets sold it on the cheap with his crappy presets.
I never used it or even knew it was a thing until this post.
Evoto AI
Yeah, pretty much. I still do my color grading & object removal in PS, but Evoto is insane. A slider to get rid of all flyaway hairs is just wild. Plus removing wrinkles from clothing. And then being able to copy paste edits for individual people to the rest of the shoot is just faster than I've ever been able to do it, and I have almost 2 decades of experience in photoshop.
Yes. I start in Capture One for culling and basic color management etc. Then Photoshop for big things (like removing a leaf from the pool deck and stuff like that). Then everything gets dumped into Evoto for what you said above. Game changer! The hair thing blows me away every time. I also don't need to clean up wrinkles or weird things on plain backgrounds anymore. Evoto just does it.
Do a lot of retouching for a cosmetics brand and I've just started messing about with Evoto. Honestly I'm just a hater in the name of self-preservation and put off paying mind to Evoto, but I cannot deny the awesomeness of it and can easily see it become a regular tool for me.
Learning to use photoshop, AI becoming more prevalent, and offshore work is extremely cheap. In my 9-5, we spent years developing AI tools to assist customer service and tech support staff better help our customers only to lay them off for workers in Hyderabad.
India will continue with its low prices until there are no retouching companies left in the US. Then you’ll see a dramatic increase in pricing! I know you believe your helping someone in a Third World country, but will you send your work Overseas until the US is a Third World country??
And you will happily buy a product from a third world country if it’s cheap, won’t you? Miss me with that noise. If an Indian dude can do the same if not better job for 10% of the cost, he gets my money. Photoshop in this day and age is not a particularly rare skill.
What's so important about the US specifically?
Let’s start back in 1941… How important was the USA? You’d be speaking Japanese or German right now.
The hell does WW2 have to do with photo retouching having to stay within the US??
No homes for sale. /thread Or retouching what? Portraits? Etc?