"Outsourcing" Photoshop work

[domenico Foschi]

I got an email today from this company.
http://www.deepetch.com/home.php
I understand time is valuable.
Digital main advantage, probably after savings, is speed in turnaround time.
Now this company is telling us that we can get even faster and less stressed by giving them part of the Photoshop work.
What's your opinion?

[Marko]

Sure, you can have your (B&W) negatives developed and your prints made by a lab too.

But would you do it?

[Walter Calahan]

I'm going to outsource my creativity too.

I don't see how anyone can make the type of adjustments I make to interpret my images.

This is one of my favorite final exam questions to my college photo students when I teach basic B&W printing. We 'interpret' our negatives.

Since when do we not interpret our digital files?

I got the same e-mail. Put it in my spam filter.

[Bruce Watson]

The time it takes you to explain to them what you want done could probably be better spent doing it yourself. You'll likely get results that better match your intentions, and it will probably actually be quicker since you won't have to explain it to anyone else. Or take the time to ship stuff back and forth.

And shipping stuff back and forth is a real productivity killer, at least for me. It forces you into a multi-tasking mode where you do a little bit then wait. So you start something else. Repeat until you have six of seven projects in process. Then the first thing comes back and interrupts what you are currently working on. Etc. So you end up working a lot without accomplishing much. Blech.

Just not my way of working I guess. And therefore clearly, YMMV.

[Frank Petronio]

It makes sense for wedding photographers and others who need to process a lot of digital images, in fact there are many services already, domestic and off-shore. Since it would all be FTP delivery there is no "shipping" or delay. In fact some places will do it while you sleep. You can also specify exactly what you want do with your workflow.

When you think about it, 90% of what you need done is rudimentary grunt work -- make the grey grey, hit a black and white point, dust bust, make lines straight, remove blemishes, blend backgrounds. So why not outsource it when you are faced with doing hundreds of images?

What's funny is so many of you will turn up your noses at this, yet you think nothing of sending your film off to be drum-scanned, which is really the most crucial step in the process and very dependent on the scan operator's skill.

At the highest end of commercial work, retouchers can also be "stars" in their own right. Or the closely guarded secret employees of the most famous photographers.

I think we would all be surprised by just how much retouching and manipulation goes into most of the modern commercial images.

[domenico Foschi]

It makes sense for wedding photographers and others who need to process a lot of digital images, in fact there are many services already, domestic and off-shore.

At the highest end of commercial work, retouchers can also be "stars" in their own right. Or closely guarded secrets of the most famous photographers.

I think we would all be surprised by just how much retouching and manipulation goes into most of the modern commercial images.

I agree, Frank.
The amount of retouching especially in a wedding is a cumbersome task and I would probably see the service of such a company useful.
Also, as you say, there are photoshop artists who have a real talent in using this tool and hiring them is just like hiring a gifted printer.
Then it comes the question; whose image really is, but I won't get into that.
I am not sure where I would lean toward.

[Duane Polcou]

At the highest end of commercial work, retouchers can also be "stars" in their own right. Or the closely guarded secret employees of the most famous photographers.

I think we would all be surprised by just how much retouching and manipulation goes into most of the modern commercial images.

This is so true. In the days before desktop photoshop editing was commonplace, I shot some stills for an indy film in NJ. The shoot was in a corporate office. I wandered into a space that was half the size of a football field with dozens of workstations where there were pictures of recognizeable supermodels everywhere. This company, as it tuned out, did most of the retouching for the major North American fashion magazines. Until that point I had no idea this practice even existed, or at least not on this massive scale. Outsourcing of image editing has been going on for years, and for many it's just part of a creative workflow that entrusts some of the execution to those with refined skills.

[jetcode]

no way ... starting at 60 cents? I can't turn my computer on for 60 cents.

[jetcode]

I think we would all be surprised by just how much retouching and manipulation goes into most of the modern commercial images.

I'm not ... I've met some high end models and their skin does not look like the airbrushed images on magazine covers ... for the most part though some truly are gifted

[Brian Ellis]

Half the pleasure of photography for me has always been in making the print, first in a darkroom, now digitally. I've never used a lab in my life except to process color film a few times and never plan to. But I'm not a commercial photographer and don't work in great volume. For someone who does a lot of volume commercially it might make sense just as a wet lab for printing makes sense for some.