Alejandro Crespo wrote:
Time and retouching work done on each image would depend of the future use of the image, the status of the client, and the quality of the file.

Not really. It's a personal choice, of course, but I don't think the quality of your work should depend on the status of the client or the future use of the image. The quality of your work should only depend on what you want to represent.

If you are paid to work on that image, you should - in my opinion - do the same kind of work for all of your clients, their status / quality of the image / use of the image / ... doesn't matter.

If you're referring to money, when you say "status of the client" then - and again, this is how I feel about it - they can either afford to pay you or they can't. If they can, it doesn't matter whether they are published photographers or just starting out.  You should give them the same quality of work, that's what you're being paid for.

Laura Abigail wrote:
You can deliver the same kind of quality without spending 4 hours on just the skin. Quality is not just in skin, it's in the colour (which, to me, is the most important part of retouching), it's in your vision, in the small details...

If it's fashion, and there's less skin (or there's simply less detail in the skin because it's a full body shot) you spend maybe an hour on skin, and the rest of the time on clothing/background/... It's just a matter of finding a way to make it work for you.

It depends on what the image is going to be used for and what your client wants, but if it's a fashion editorial and the client is expecting the same kind of skin as in my beauty images, and there's a lot of skin (maybe even with a lot of detail in it), then I will deliver the client an image with fully retouched skin. If it costs more than some of the beauty images I did, so be it. Your client is not going to say "that's more than a beauty image", what he/she can say is "that's too much". So, to answer that question: Yes, you can charge the same for beauty and fashion, if it's the same amount of work, why not?

A client just wants the perfect image and if you can deliver that, they won't mind paying you for it. Don't be scared to ask money for your work, don't go "but that's too much! I can't possibly ask that amount of money!" ... I used to make that mistake. Yes you can, if you have found the right clients for the kind of work you do.

Yep I understand that, thats why I stated in the first post that the use of the image gonna have impact in the kind of work you do. Because if for instance, the fashion image is for a bigboard, one gonna have to put the same micro work as for beauty.

But if the fashion image is one of 20, that i dunno, gonna appear in this year summer catalog, the extra work in the skin and very small details dont matter at all, it would be acceptable to apply a skin smoothening plugin/extention and there would be no difference in that 20secs or the 2 hors of DnB when printed.

The same if a photographer that have a natural style with his portraits, will not find acceptable that you do the same work as in your beauty images in his shots, and you can charge him the same for a work you know you know gonna spent a lot less time in too .

Or take for example a glamour studio that i done retouching for, they wanted all the skin as porcelain and it took like 30min per picture to have the images as they wanted.

Laura Abigail wrote:
If you are paid to work on that image, you should - in my opinion - do the same kind of work for all of your clients, their status / quality of the image / use of the image / ... doesn't matter.

If I give you a RAW file and say prepare me the the cover for my E-Magazine and I don't want it for any other purpose, are you going to quote me for more than if I want to use it for H&M billboards and magazine adverts.

Reality is, it's probably more of a cost issue. If I post on Facebook I won't expect you to have put as much work in as I would for my printed folio, I would expect the cost/work to reflect that

Mike Needham Retouching wrote:

If I give you a RAW file and say prepare me the the cover for my E-Magazine and I don't want it for any other purpose, are you going to quote me for more than if I want to use it for H&M billboards and magazine adverts.

Reality is, it's probably more of a cost issue. If I post on Facebook I won't expect you to have put as much work in as I would for my printed folio, I would expect the cost/work to reflect that

+1

Laura Abigail wrote:

Not really. It's a personal choice, of course, but I don't think the quality of your work should depend on the status of the client or the future use of the image. The quality of your work should only depend on what you want to represent.

I respectfully disagree - when I'm retouching for a local client I sure do my best to give them great quality as usual, but I definitely won't spend as much time as for a client whose photos I'm retouching for a publication. I sometimes over-deliver when I know that the images I'm working on are going to have big exposure. It's like investing in your own advertising... and that's given I will be able to use those images and tear-sheets in my own portfolio.

Mike Needham Retouching wrote:

If I give you a RAW file and say prepare me the the cover for my E-Magazine and I don't want it for any other purpose, are you going to quote me for more than if I want to use it for H&M billboards and magazine adverts.

Reality is, it's probably more of a cost issue. If I post on Facebook I won't expect you to have put as much work in as I would for my printed folio, I would expect the cost/work to reflect that

Yes of course, I was more talking about using it for Facebook vs print portfolio. Not the big differences like billboard vs Facebook, in that case it is indeed the budget. He was talking about "status" etc, what I was saying applies to images within the same budget range that will maybe be used in different ways.

Julia Kuzmenko McKim wrote:

I respectfully disagree - when I'm retouching for a local client I sure do my best to give them great quality as usual, but I definitely won't spend as much time as for a client whose photos I'm retouching for a publication. I sometimes over-deliver when I know that the images I'm working on are going to have big exposure. It's like investing in your own advertising... and that's given I will be able to use those images and tear-sheets in my own portfolio.

I agree with you, I do the same thing. Maybe I didn't really express it the right way, what I meant is, I don't start on an image thinking "I won't use this for my portfolio and I don't like the image, I will quickly finish this and deliver less quality" when the client is for example a student. If I really like a project, there's a big chance I will work longer than I'm hired for. But the standard quality you deliver shouldn't depend on the status of your client. (Of course we over-deliver for publications etc, but we should never under-deliver because a job doesn't seem important... That's how I feel about it)

Laura Abigail wrote:

I agree with you, I do the same thing. Maybe I didn't really express it the right way, what I meant is, I don't start on an image thinking "I won't use this for my portfolio and I don't like the image, I will quickly finish this and deliver less quality" when the client is for example a student. If I really like a project, there's a big chance I will work longer than I'm hired for. But the standard quality you deliver shouldn't depend on the status of your client. (Of course we over-deliver for publications etc, but we should never under-deliver because a job doesn't seem important... That's how I feel about it)

By status I was referring to the "name" the client has and the budget they manage .

Alejandro Crespo wrote:

By status I was referring to the "name" the client has and the budget they manage .

I don't link name to budget because I sometimes get high budgets from photographers that don't have "a name" at all, and sometimes a photographer with "a name" happens to be on a low-budget production. But I suppose you could over-deliver for bigger names if you feel that you could get more future work out of it.

To put it simple: if someone with a big name gave me a job for a budget, and someone no one's ever heard about gave me the same job for that same budget, I personally would deliver them both the same quality of work. To me they are equally as important when it comes to who they are, as long as they both pay my rate. If one of them happens to have a bigger budget, then of course that person will get more out of it. If one of them happens to have a publication, then I could make the decision to over-deliver, although... to be honest, if I have to over-deliver in order to be happy with what I've done that means that the budget was too low for the amount of work. (Not saying that I occasionally won't take on a low-budget or TF project when it's something I really like, or that I won't work longer if I feel it's needed)

I won't take on work that has a budget that is too low for me to be able to deliver the standard quality that I want to deliver.

But this is different for everyone and I think the best way to find out what works for you is experience. If we all had the same way of running our businesses and the same way of dealing with situations the world would be a boring place