AIBU to think I can make money doing photo edits?

[Lola528]

Just that really! I am proficient in Photoshop and can do photo restoration/editing, background removal, face swap, fantasy edits and much more.

I’ve created a FB group but it’s private for now and I’ve only added friends/family. I’m scared/nervous to push it to “public” as there’s always that self doubt of “am I good enough to charge for this?” I’ve done hundreds of free edits on various FB groups but now hope to earn a little side-money or even make this full time for a while. Feedback has been good, but somethings holding me back!

Is this a service you would pay for? Has anyone started something similar?

Any advice on what to do next would be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

You could always pay for advertising, I suppose?

There's a lot of people offering this on the app Fivrr. If you haven't seen the app, it's one where you can pay people to do small jobs, seller sets the price but as the name suggests the price should be around $USD5.

I have got a few done, some of my wedding pics. So yes you can do it, not sure if it will provide a full time wage though. More of a hobby thing maybe?

I would get some experience on a site like Fiver where you won't make much at all but can build up your confidence and experience as well as getting some testimonials. Once established you can charge more and also set up shop on your own, outside of those sites, using things like targeted FB ads to generate leads. And once confident you could contact PR / marketing agencies near to you offering freelance services to them with quick turnaround and cost effective prices. I would really build your confidence first though, you need a thick skin and know your worth to run a business. I love doing it though

there’s always that self doubt of “am I good enough to charge for this?”

Don’t worry- people will soon let you know if you’re not!

Until that happens, keep selling your services. The more you do it the less likely it is anyone will have reason to tell you you’re not good enough.

First thing you want to do is call what you do “image processing”

“Editing” is going through all of the images from a session and deciding which ones to use and which ones to bin.

I think if it’s processing services for people you know on individual images it will be pocket money really. (Especially since average joe doesn’t value what you do “oh I can just download an app with filters”)

If you’re really awesome then the market you want is semi-professional/professional photographers who are busy enough to want to outsource their processing to someone cheap, consistent and reliable 👌

Thank you everyone, great feedback as always :)

The problem I can see is that it is easy for photographers to outsource overseas. Sites like Retouchup.com offer very reasonable prices with fast turn around so it may be difficult for you to compete.

I think you need to build up a consistent repeat client base and how you do this will depend on what type of photographers you are aiming at. If it is seasonal, can you cope in the quiet times? Consistency and reliability would be the most important qualities. I would love to find someone who understood my style and could replicate it but so far I haven't found anyone who gets it right so I just do what I can in Lightroom myself and go to one of the larger companies for the occasional image that needs more technical work.

On the other hand, if I could find someone that would take the raw images from a shoot straight from my camera card, edit them down, apply my style and and use a bit of imagination in photoshop to apply crops and backgrounds/skies etc and provide me with a great set of images to show my client, I would be very happy to pay a reasonable fee for it as I prefer to be out shooting rather than sat at a computer!