Why does it cost more money to airbrush/edit more of a photo?

Question

In fashion and advertisements, I know they edit photos to remove acne, make women look slimmer, etc., but I've heard that it costs more the more you have to edit. I don't get it. Shouldn't it cost the same to edit a small part of a photo, than many parts? What more are you paying for, once you've got the editing program and the person to use it?

Answer 1

Yeah, what's up with that?

I also want to know why it costs more money the more fuel I want to put in my car. I don't get it. What more are you paying for, once you've got the fuel pumps and the person to run them?

Answer 2

It all has to do with the billable hours necessary to make all the corrections.

In the gardening biz, doesn't it cost more to trim all your trees and shrubs than just one?

You are paying for the person to actually 1) go to school to learn how to use the program efficiently 2) gain the experience, so they become an expert at using the program 3) pay their salary including all the usual benefits like health insurance, retirement and continuing education to name but a few.  If the person doing the work is a freelancer, they need to charge enough to pay for their hardware, software and all their insurance, retirement, etc.

The Photoshop wizard I use charges $150 per hour to work on an image file ... that is why it is so important to have a great MUA and a photographer who knows their business well enough to eliminate as much post production as possible.

Answer 3

More time and attention to detail spent to edit it I suppose?

Answer 4

Getting rid of a zit or two is certainly not the same thing as getting rid of stray hairs, doing a complete body slimming, waxing their eyebrows, removing a cast, fixing a lazy eye and doing all of the normal stuff like color and contrast correcting. If you want your stuff to look good you WANT someone to spent a lot of time on it. Just like cars, ipods, cellphones and all technology, just because you bought the software once, doesn't mean you won't have to upgrade in a year. And that stuff isn't cheap. My suggestion is to search on the internet to find someplace you can have things shipped off to. I've heard you can get things pretty cheap and that the work isn't horrible.

Answer 5

time is money. you have to pay someone per hour to do the work.-blurey