“Master your strengths, outsource your weaknesses.”

 (Ryan Khan, Founder of The Hired Group)

What do you think about this idea? Do you have enough time to make your business thrive, or are you spending a lot of time focusing on outgrowing your weaknesses? In the photography business, the dilemma of whether you should outsource photo editing or do it yourself pops up more often than you’d think.

If you’re struggling to make a decision think about why you decided to get into the biz in the first place: did you want to spend time shooting, getting creative, and positioning yourself as an expert photographer, or did you want to amaze the world with your image editing and image retouching skills? We guess that most photographers started a business so they can follow their passion for capturing amazing shots.

In this article, we’ll discuss in-house vs. outsourced photo editing, hoping to make it easier for you to make the best decision for the future of your photography business.

Why outsourcing image editing is a good idea

• Great performance is rarely achieved by one person alone. Great things are done by a team of people working together towards the same objective. And truth be told, you might not have the physical time to do all it takes to sustain your photography business. If you outsource image editing, you will take a big task off your list, so you’ll have enough time to dedicate to photography, interacting with clients, and growing your business.

• Another big pro in favor of outsourcing is that you can choose to collaborate with an expert who specializes in photo editing. An expert will be very flexible in understanding your style and help you cover image retouching needs without compromising your identity as a photographer. On the other hand, if you hire an in-house photo editor, you will need to invest time and energy in training them to fully trust them with your photoshopping. 

• Every photoshoot is different, bringing new situations and lightning challenges, so there are many steps in editing images to get to a perfect result. Sometimes, the list of edits can become overwhelming: background removal, shadows, white balance, exposure, contrast, skin retouching, teeth whitening, resizing, and converting - just to name a few.

• Outsourcing increases turnaround time - which is crucial to keeping your customers happy. The faster they get their product photography or portrait photography ready, the more satisfied they will be with you (increasing your chances of getting contracted again). In addition, if you don’t have to worry about image editing for every client, you will have a better-streamlined process, and you’ll be able to deliver and don’t miss deadlines.

In-house image editing Pros & Cons

• If you want to be more in control of the creative process of image retouching, you might consider hiring an in-house editor. While this might sound like a good idea, remember that there are some pros & cons to this as well.

• Quality image editing takes time, so keep this in mind when deciding and try not to compromise on quality as this will damage your reputation fast. 

• A good thing about in-house image editing is that you have complete control over the creative projects. For example, if you want your images to be retouched in a very particular way, in-house image retouching might be a good idea.

To sum up…

Image editing is often outsourced for several reasons: avoiding repetitive tasks like removing backgrounds, creating masks, skin retouching, or rasterizing. It can all be outsourced to a company that will do this for you fast. 

Outsourcing your photo editing needs is a good idea if you focus more on profit-generating tasks, keeping your process streamlined, and having a faster turnaround. This will lead to more satisfied clients and more time for you to develop your business further. 

If you value the creative process more than anything (which we get), then hiring an in-house editor might be the answer for you. But even if you do have the resources in-house, you can save your team from dreadful repetitive tasks and engage them in other creative tasks that bring real value to your business.

Do you want to outsource image editing to a team of experts? Don’t hesitate to contact us here.