Photo Editing Decision

[kylesfreelance]

Hello, I am trying to decide which way to go with editing my pictures.

Option A Photo Editing service If so what company.

Option B. Lightroom.

 

[Overread]

That's a pretty important choice and honestly if you're choice is editing services or lightroom it doesn't sound like you've much demand for extensive editing so an editing service (at least a proper one) would most likely be overkill unless you are producing a vast amount that you can't manage (and then I'd argue that you could likely get the same service cheaper with an aid than an external editing lab).

External labs are good if you want to have things edited to a specific style and which require some extensive or high quality and time consuming work which you can't do in house - if you're just prepping RAW images and you've a good workflow software option like Lightroom then that should suffice (although many argue that you will want photoshop or another image editing program to support lightroom for those photos that require a little more work).

 

[kylesfreelance]

But I am not gonna have much time to edit them though.

 

[Overread]

What nature of work is this and how much is not much time?

 

[kylesfreelance]

I have a part time day job and then I do photography on the side. Concerts,Festivals,Senior Pictures.

 

[CA_]

But I am not gonna have much time to edit them though.

Lightroom. I only use lightroom when I'm editing a large batch of images. When I go in for the fine detail editing, I'm a fine tooth-and-comb kinda guy (I'm more of a post processor / retouch type), so I enjoy that part. But, that kind of fine detail work can't be accomplished on a large scale and very quickly, unless it's done by multiple artists, aka a company.

 

[kylesfreelance]

If I get good reasons to edit in lightroom then I will choose that. if not a editing company is what I will choose.

 

[Overread]

The other side of the coin is are you charging too little on your photography services. Remember your rates should include your editing time since that is part of the hours that you work on a project. From what you say it sounds like you could physically have the time provided that your rates reflect it - whilst also realising that you'd have to up your rates (likely even more) if you hire an external service to do the editing for you.