Photo District News, the venerable photo trade magazine, published an article in the January issue titled “Digital Confusion” about apparent difficulty photographers are having deciding what to charge for post-processing their files before delivery to the client. (no link to the article; it’s not online)
The main idea was that there are a lot of different ways (and amounts) to charge for post-shoot digital services, and nobody seems to agree which is best.
Editorial photographer and workflow consultant Seth Resnick says that “photographers doing post-processing should not charge by the hour, but rather should document the numbers of layers or steps they used.” That sounds like the “baffle them with bullshit” technique to me.
According to the article, some photographers are hiding their (much higher for digital) overhead costs in a Digital Processing line item. That ain’t right.
National Geographic Traveler has instituted a $100 per diem allowance for digital processing. That seems pretty fair.
I thought the article was a bit of a tempest in a teapot, so I wrote a Letter to the Editor and they published it in the April issue. Please do comment. Read the letter