4 Benefits of Outsourcing Your Editing

Find out just how simple it is to outsource your editing and gain back hundreds of hours of free time each year!

A few years ago I was drowning in edits. It was fall, so I was doing tons of family and senior sessions and it was the last wedding season that I did. I felt like editing was sucking the life out of me and I didn’t have any time to enjoy my family, fall activities or prepare for the holidays. There came a point where I was coming home from gorgeous weddings and the most fun receptions and couldn’t wait to see what was captured. But I soon found that I was running behind on my galleries being sent to clients and then, I started passing kidney stones. Fun times. 

I was in an IG group with some other photographers and we got to talking about outsourcing our editing. I had always been hesitant to do this because I wanted my edits to still look like they were done by me, not someone else. Editing really is something I enjoy. I had just reached a point where I felt overwhelmed. Editing was the only thing that I could turn over to someone else. So I looked up one of the names that was mentioned in my group and checked out her website. She had a great site up, so I emailed her right away. And after a couple of email exchanges, I opted NOT to outsource. Let me explain why I didn’t, and how I learned from this experience.

Outsource Help Without Overwhelming Fear

Choosing to outsource your editing is probably something you’ve never done before. I can’t speak for everyone, but the idea of doing that without someone clearly explaining to me what to expect was terrifying. After I inquired about services, I received an email that was very lengthy, with a lot of words I didn’t understand. And that was that. My brain shut down. I felt like it was going to be too much for me to learn just to get her my files and in that amount of time, I could just edit the files myself.  One of my goals as an editor is to make every step of this as easy and as simple as possible. PDF guides, images, links, emails… are all done so that you have multiple ways to take in the information. 

Have Systems in Place

Having systems in place from the beginning is such a big help! I’ve spent so many hours before launching myself as an editor making sure that a system would be ready to go so that you, as the client, would be organized, and so I would be, as well. When you become my client, you’ll complete the onboarding process and then have your own portal that will store your information, like our emails, your upcoming edit dates, invoices, and any other communication between us. All right there, in one place. 

I Become an Extension of You

Something that gets asked a lot of photo editors is if you can see examples of our work. This is a tricky question. My work as an editor is going to change from client to client. I edit for you. I learn your style and make adjustments that you want me to make, based on your anchor images. I don’t edit based on what I would do. If you want to see my work as an editor, it’s best to look at my work as a photographer. This way, you can see that I understand how to edit. I’ll gladly point you in that direction any time!

Outsourcing Your Editing is Surprisingly Affordable

A lot of photographers think they can’t afford to outsource their editing. In reality, if you either increase what you charge for weddings or book just one or two more weddings for the year, that alone will pay the fee to outsource! Let’s do the math. Say you provide 600 images from a wedding. My flat fee is .35 per image. That total would come to roughly $210.00. And then let’s say you have 20 weddings booked for the year. The cost to outsource all 20 of those weddings is going to be $4,200. And if you have 20 weddings booked for the year, chances are you’re charging at least $3,000 per wedding. With 1-2 more weddings, you free up literally hundreds of hours to now spend doing anything but editing. Win win.