What to charge for freelancing?

[Deluded]

I'm possibly doing some freelance photoshop work for a local photographer. He's landed a big contract with a national supermarket chain and can't manage the photoshop work on his own.

He's asked me to do a few samples to show my work and give him a "cost per image" price.

The work needed varies massively from photo to photo so it's hard to give a set price. For example. the two samples he asked me to do, one took around 5 mins. The other took around 3 hours.

He says there will probably be in the region of 90 images a week so will keep me fairly busy, although he says there are less of the complex ones than easy ones.

What should I charge per image? I have no idea of the going rate...

[awager]

If the images are going to vary that much in the amount of work required then tell him that and give him a cost per hour.

Alternatively, a cost per image if only "basic" work is required and specify what you consider basic. Any other work is per hour.

[andy-xr]

Cost per image isnt going to work for you from the sounds of it unless you're specc'ing up sets etc

[spiralp]

I would charge a minimum of £25 per hour for straightforward Photoshop work. If the work requires advanced Photoshop skills then you could charge up to £50 per hour. I rarely do anything that takes more than 30 mins, and I charge £10 per image. Having said that, the images I charge for are usually one-offs (not 90 per week!) and my skills are not advanced. Simple work correcting white balance, saturation, contrast, sharpening, cropping, etc I do in Lightroom and do not charge for.

[jackal]

A decent retoucher should be getting his £300 per day i would expect so divide that by 8 to get an hourly rate. Wouldn't bother separating it out into simple and advanced, just charge for your total time.

[spareparts]

jackal said:

A decent retoucher should be getting his £300 per day i would expect so divide that by 8 to get an hourly rate. Wouldn't bother separating it out into simple and advanced, just charge for your total time.

Agreed, time in 'Shop is time in Shop.

[RV8]

Sooo many variables.
I'd probably charge per hour on this type of work. £300 per day is London prices for a well established freelancer in this climate. I have worked for a most major publishers and a large games company rate was around £180 per day although this was a few years ago.

To be honest when it comes to pricing you build up an idea of what works out best for you and what keeps the client happy, I'll often be offered a price per image or asked to quote, in this case it all depends on the client and the type of work. I just know with some jobs the work can be done in a couple of days and if, by past experience, the client is happy to pay a grand for the set work I'm not going to start quoting day rates. Conversely if the client is going to deliver a regular workload I'll strike a deal, perhaps this photographer will offer you more work in the future if he's happy with your work and the fee.

Also when dealing with fee's it boils down to the deadline - If there is, say, 200 hrs of work but the deadline is two weeks you could do 14ish hour days for 14 days but charge a hourly rate rather than a day rate or you'll wind up losing out. In this case I whack a premium on the job- ie a job came in just before my wedding, but it was for an established client I did not want to let down, even so, I knew it'd be a ball ache with all the other organizing so I priced my time more highly.

At the end of the day you are luck in many respects that you have a client that didn't come to you with a "price in mind" followed by the usual "there are less of the complex images" as a sweetener, only to find you have conflicting ideas about what constitutes a complex image. I'm speaking from the ten years in this industry and I've learned the hard way a few times.

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

Whatever you charge, you can then outsource it to India for 25p per image, and pocket the difference.

[Pixel Pusher]

On average, our freelancers will charge £35 per hour and it can go up to £50 - £60 per hour at weekends.

[trackdemon]

S. Gonzales Esq. said:

Whatever you charge, you can then outsource it to India for 25p per image, and pocket the difference.

I've had a few samples done by different companies in this market, and the quality fell way below the standard I would do myself let alone a full time pro-retoucher. I guess you get what you pay for....

[RV8]

trackdemon said:

S. Gonzales Esq. said:

Whatever you charge, you can then outsource it to India for 25p per image, and pocket the difference.

I've had a few samples done by different companies in this market, and the quality fell way below the standard I would do myself let alone a full time pro-retoucher. I guess you get what you pay for....

You are better off buying a copy of mask pro if you do this sort of thing regularly, it's a brilliant plug-in for PS and a vital tool to add to your arsenal, probably quicker to achieve professional results using this than the time it takes to send an email to one of these places.