Most photographers who tried outsourcing and went back to editing themselves did not leave because of quality. They left because of drift: batch one came back beautiful, batch six came back different, and re-editing a "finished" gallery is more work than editing it from scratch.
Drift has one cause. In a retouching company your files go to whoever is free — a different person each week, each with slightly different habits. Nobody is doing anything wrong; the result is still a gallery that does not look like your work.
In short
- The same person edits every batch — that is the whole point
- Send a reference gallery or your presets once; I match your look, not a house look
- Files over Drive, Dropbox or WeTransfer, straight from camera
- 1–5 day turnaround depending on batch size and queue
- $4–5 per image · minimum 50 images a month · PayPal or bank transfer
The handover, step by step
First batch: send the files and either a reference gallery of your own edits or your presets, plus a short note about anything specific — how far you go on skin, whether you open eyes, whether you crop. Two sentences is usually enough.
I edit, you review. If something is off against your look, say so on that first batch and I adjust; after that the calibration holds and the notes stop. From then on it is send files, receive files.
What the per-image price hides
A per-image rate only makes sense when the same person absorbs the hard files. A wrapped baby on a clean backdrop takes minutes; the same session's naked shot at 12 days, with heavy peeling and a parent's hands to rebuild, can take half an hour. Averaged across a gallery, $4–5 works. Priced per file, it would not.
That also explains the 50-image monthly minimum. Below that the averaging stops working, and one-off single jobs turn into rush work — which is exactly the kind of editing that produces drift.
Questions worth asking any retoucher
Who will actually edit my files, and will it be the same person next month? What happens if a batch comes back wrong — revision or re-quote? Do you use AI plugins, and where? Can I see two galleries from the same client, six months apart?
That last one is the real test. Anyone can produce one good gallery. Consistency over a year is the thing you are actually buying.
What I don't take on
One-off single projects, rush jobs and volumes under 50 images a month. Not because they are difficult, but because this only works as a standing part of your workflow — the calibration that makes batch twelve look like batch one has to be worth doing.
Full pricing and the complete genre list are on the retouching services page.
FAQ
Google Drive, Dropbox or WeTransfer — whichever you already use. Send them straight from camera: RAW or full-size JPEG, unedited and uncropped.
1–5 days depending on batch size and what is in the queue. If you have a deadline, say so when you send — I'll tell you honestly whether it fits.
On the first batch that is expected — tell me what is off against your look and I adjust. After the calibration batch, revisions are rare, and they are still included.
No contract and no retainer. There is a monthly minimum of 50 images; beyond that you send what you have when you have it.
Yes — family, maternity, milestone, cake smash, couples and weddings, headshots, product and jewellery. The genre list is on the services page.
Deividas Kvederys — photographer and retoucher based in Lithuania, EU. I shot 450+ weddings and 1,500+ sessions before I started editing for other photographers, and I still edit every image myself. For the newborn-specific detail start with newborn retouching; if you shoot in Western Europe, the time zone and invoicing notes are worth two minutes. Retouching services · deividaskvederys.lt