Are there for-fee private photo editing services?

Question

Is there any fee for service company that specializes in photo editing? Is there any service out there that can assist? I've tried editing software like GIMP but don't have the knowledge to work it like an expert would.

Answer 1

As will all questions on the internet. When I type "photo enhance..." Google automatically suggests "photo enhancement services" and there are a lot of them around.

In this video Robert Jacobs recommends one (Retouchup, the same dpollitt suggested). The prices are from $2.50 to $10 per image. $10 gets you people removed from photos etc. $2.50 gets you skin smoothing etc.

Answer 2

The best out there that I have used is RetouchUp. They can easily and quickly turn around one or many images that include fixes such as head swaps, background changes, adding or removing people, etc. I know many professional photographers that use this when more then simple color, crop, white balance, etc is needed. It isn't every shot or even every client that expects heads to be swapped, so this can surely come in handy, and $10 or so is a very reasonable amount for how much time can be saved if you don't have the skills to do it quickly.

Many other competitors big and small exist, just search Google for "digital touchup", "photo retouching", or similar.

• RetouchUp - Recommended
• Photo Retouch Me
• ReTouch Max
• Photo Revive

Answer 3

There are a few photo hosting sites, such as SlickPic, that offer photo editing as an added fee option. You will need to register for a free account to see the information concerning available editing options. If you do a search for "photo editing services" using Google or bing, there are millions of results. There are some disadvantages to using such a service.

• Paying on a per photo basis will quickly add up to more than buying editing software such as Photoshop Elements, not to mention much more than open source editors such as the GIMP, and learning how to use them yourself.
• Handing the task over to another party also means you are allowing them to decide what the final photo should look like. This may be similar to what you want, or radically different.
• Although many such services may be professionally managed, at the end of the day for businesses the bottom line is, "how many photos did you edit?", not "how well did you edit them?" Only you will care enough to spend the time to get your photo just right.

I would recommend you spend some time learning how to use editing software. The GIMP has a fairly steep learning curve that can be daunting when you first begin. There are many online tutorials available to help you learn how to harness this powerful tool.

• Here is a link to a list of 30 different tutorials aimed at beginners.
• This link is a list of tutorials at http://www.gimp.org/.
• Here is another site dedicated to GIMP tutorials.

Once you have a basic understanding of the program and need help with more specific questions, forums such as http://gimpchat.com/, http://www.gimptalk.com/, and http://sourceforge.net/p/gimp-win/discussion/ are a good place to get answers.

The question How do I get started in post-processing with Gimp? also has a few pointers and links to resources regarding using GIMP.