September 2010 Archives
Those like myself doing work for publishers need a little pep talk from time to time. Budgets continue to shrink, terms become more onerous, and life is just all around mucky trying to deal with magazines. Check out this article by Paul Melcher on the brave new digital world and how photographers out to be viewing it.
I sent a sample image to the Indian retouchers for a free test and to find out pricing. The not-too-difficult image shown below was handled petty well, though they did not include more natural looking shadows under the man's feet and at the base of the machine. I suspect they would be able to handle more difficult retouching as well.
What about pricing? "Normally we charge 4 USD per image for this kind of work," said Poonam, the web contact.
I'm not going to be using this service. I can't do that to graphic artist friends. But the world continues to shrink.
What about pricing? "Normally we charge 4 USD per image for this kind of work," said Poonam, the web contact.
I'm not going to be using this service. I can't do that to graphic artist friends. But the world continues to shrink.
I received an email this morning from a company called Differential Technologies in India. It's not the first of its type I've gotten. They inform me they have 60 trained and experienced Photoshop professionals standing ready to meet all my photo processing needs, including masking, color correction, restorations, skin beauty retouching, and photo colorizing, among others.
Outsourcing has hit the photo business. Where you might pay $75 to $150 per hour for photo retouching here in the United States, now just FTP your images to New Delhi and get them zapped back the next day. As their email says, 'Our prices CANNOT be beaten'. I replied to find out just what those prices are, but I would be surprised if they topped $10 per hour.
Photo books showcasing photographers' work have been printed in China for a long time, so it's no surprise that all aspects of the digital work flow are now being scattered around the world. Who wins? Who suffers? It's clear photographers and picture agencies can get a lot of work done cheaply, while US retouchers will lose work to overseas firms. But it seems in the end, both the photo and graphics businesses comes down another notch. Stock image prices have plunged, and continue their downward trend. Cheap digital cameras have taken a huge bite out of the professional photographers' markets. And on we go.
Outsourcing has hit the photo business. Where you might pay $75 to $150 per hour for photo retouching here in the United States, now just FTP your images to New Delhi and get them zapped back the next day. As their email says, 'Our prices CANNOT be beaten'. I replied to find out just what those prices are, but I would be surprised if they topped $10 per hour.
Photo books showcasing photographers' work have been printed in China for a long time, so it's no surprise that all aspects of the digital work flow are now being scattered around the world. Who wins? Who suffers? It's clear photographers and picture agencies can get a lot of work done cheaply, while US retouchers will lose work to overseas firms. But it seems in the end, both the photo and graphics businesses comes down another notch. Stock image prices have plunged, and continue their downward trend. Cheap digital cameras have taken a huge bite out of the professional photographers' markets. And on we go.
