FAQ: Commercial Photography - Frequently Asked Questions

Be creative, be inspired, be happy - Creative commercial photography since 2009

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Quick fire Q&As

We’d like to book you! What are the next steps? Contact us or use our detailed enquiry form.

What is your pricing? It varies, read more.

Image licensing, what's that? It varies, read more.

How do I define commercial photography? read more.

What does a commercial photographer photograph? See examples.

What types of commercial work do I cover? I don't get myself tied down to one particular genre, I find a mix of projects keeps life interesting.

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Why me and not the other photographer?

Without a doubt, there is an extensive pool of talent out there; but you are here now, maybe it was by referral, fate or example of my work that drew you here. Whichever, I just want to make you happy; hopefully, you won’t have to dig too much to find your own reason to enquire further!

I always give my best. I'm not the best, I don't claim to or never will be best! Rest assured, I'll do my utmost not to fall short of your expectations. I make things simple, the simpler the better, there's no point in doing business the hard way, for everyone sake I'm always improving the process to streamline the middle ground just so we can all get to the end result a bit quicker and happier. It's completely risk-free, forget payment upfront, is not required, you get to view the results before being invoiced.

Prices are transparent, Working out a fixed price helps you with your initial inquiry, avoiding hidden fees is my number one objective, my half-day and full day plan will offer you peace-of-mind with an extensive and flexible range that will help you escape those unexpected surprises. Support is never charged for. Anytime you need assistance with the process then I'll be there to ensure your experience is a smooth as it can be.

No credit card required until you are satisfied. Making a payment, once we have finalized details and the job is complete I'll invoice accordingly. Alternatively, if raising a purchase order is a bind, you are invited to make an on-line purchase by credit/debit card. For a more in-depth understanding please view the planned creative fees, set rates are assigned to each commission depending on image use and the complexity of the job. I’ve tried to keep it simple with built-in flexibility to offer clients options to purchase further options if required.

A tried and tested editing process for perfect images. If only I had a penny for all the images I've edited over the years, mastering some of today's editing software doesn't come without putting in the time and effort.

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Commercial photography prices, what is included?

Looking south towards that bottom-line, finding the value!

What do you get for your pound?

Fees are designed around flexible pricing and offer you the freedom to choose what's right for you, let's look at some benefits.

• Basic editing as standard
• Free download for image delivery
• Free image storage for 1 year
• High-resolution files as the standard format
• Free on-line proof gallery to view your images
• Advice on what package best suits your needs
• An image license that's appropriate to your budgetary requirements

Price per image

Not an easy figure to calculate for commissioned works, best suited to stock images, "pricing per image" can be referred to in our stock photography collection under buy. Example estimate quote. Download our estimate example, view sample quote for commercial photography services, opens as pdf document.

Offering good value for money.

We offer a simple choice of package deals. Aimed at local business, prices are pitched for Edinburgh UK, however, all areas are covered with associated costs covered in our business services information guide. Choose from the pricing options above or call to discuss further.

Fixed high-resolution packages with flexible options. Why should you pay more when there is no need to, our digital capture and editing fees, give you options that cover half day, full day and bespoke plans. Business services start at £375.00 with the client receiving all the final images from the shoot. The half-day and full day fees include processing & editing time of high-resolution files.

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Image capture, editing & post-production, how does that work?

How many images will you receive?

Guidance materialCalculations in relation to shooting & post-production times. Guidance material, calculations in relation to shooting & post-production times.Where do we go to draw the line on this one, your guesstimate is as good as mine! Expectations on the amount of images captured on your photography shoot will vary depending on the dynamics of the brief itself. Let us look at two extreme scenarios covering a half-day shoot.

• Brief 1: Shooting for 150 minutes (2.5hrs) and capturing 300 images will average out at an image capture rate of one image every thirty seconds.
• Brief 2: Shooting for 150 minutes (2.5hrs) and capturing 15 images will average out at an image capture rate of one image every ten minutes.

While the example in brief one may be suited to say, capturing a fast-paced event it wouldn’t be suited to capturing corporate headshots of new team members that include a few interior shots of the office. Anyhow, regardless of the amount of images taken, as always, the most significant factor in the entire process and the one which governs the set of final images received is the editing and processing time regulating that outcome.

So, what is achievable in the post-production time of 1.5 & 2.5hrs?

Putting post-production and time into context, three hundred images individually processed and receiving custom editing is unrealistic for an hour and a half of post. Realistically in this situation, there really is only enough time to download the raw files off the cameras, rename the files in order and upload into your proofing gallery to preview. However, a creative design agency receiving that amount of images as unedited files would find great delight in that option. On the flipside, a marketing executive wouldn’t thank you for hundreds and hundreds of unedited images of the latest two members joining the leadership team.

Either way, you can access all images from your shoot, additional processing time beyond 1.5hrs. is optional but will be billable and incur further charges, view here for example details. On average 36 images with basic 2.5 minutes post-production on each image seems like a realistic return for the average half-day shoot. Likewise, 50-75 images would seem appropriate for a full day shoot.

Post-production

Consists of several steps in the workflow, post-production doesn't just consider the editing of images, to be fair the editing process is just the tip of the iceberg, production goes a whole lot deeper.

Image editing in post.

Ideally, I want each image to reflect my best work; this requires all my images to be captured in RAW format to achieve the best possible outcome in post processing techniques. In laymen’s terms, each image requires individual treatment after download. Professional imaging software is used to ensure each file is rendered to meet your expectations.

Post-production, the image editing process

No image editing, zero corrections Convert to jpeg files only	Basic image editing, slight corrections will consider Colour and tonal adjustment Photo noise reduction (dots/grain reductions) Correction of underexposed (silhouetted, dark) Lossless red eye effect correction Saturation contrast and clarity Image crop	Custom image editing, extensive retouching will consider Removal or replacement of unwanted details or persons Photo isolation (object extraction) Imperfections / blemishes removal, digital transformation Panoramic photo making / Image stitching Selective colouring Lens flaws correction (distortions, vignetting )
Most suited to Creative Design & Branding Agencies	Suited for the majority of applications and is viewed as my standard.	Suited to limited occasions, applied as and when directed by the client.

 

Time factor for editing images

Incorporated rates do apply and duration depends on the number of images and detail of work required. Each image is assessed on an individual basis; occasionally there will be select images that require more in-depth attention (retouching) than others. I know this is highly dependent upon several factors but as a rough gauge a typical image will require 2-3 minutes of post processing time to introduce basic adjustments, so doing the maths 30-45 images will take 1-11/2  hours to process and edit.

File delivery and image turnaround times

Job turnaround, generally speaking, a standard overall job turnaround takes anywhere between 3 - 5 days, possibly less or just slightly longer. Please do enquire about my quick turnaround service. Doing the work and getting images to where they need to be, our workflow gives you options on how best to get the finished work delivered to you.

• Download from this site
• Disc writing service
• Dropbox

Further information on related topics can be found on these pages, a behind the scene look at workflow delves deeper into conception to completion whilst buy images edited or unedited, explains the pitfalls of the unedited image. Then there's good old project management keeping it all in perspective.

How Much! Easy guide to calculate how much your photography will cost, examples show prices for basic, standard and extended commercial use.