What it costs to outsource wedding photo editing in Canada

You already outsource some of it. Maybe a freelancer culls for you, or someone grades a batch at a per-image rate, and you still open every gallery afterwards to fix skin, re-sync the white balance and pull the duplicates they missed. By the time you deliver, the cheap part of the job has cost you a weekend.

So the useful question is not “what is the cheapest rate per image”. It is “what does one wedding cost me, start to finish, and how much of it do I still have to do myself?”

Per image or per wedding: what Canadian photographers pay now

Canadian studios already send editing offshore, and the job posts they write to hire freelance editors tend to quote a few cents per image to edit, with culling as a separate small fee per wedding.

Those rates look low, and on paper they are. But once you add the culling fee and your own hours checking the work, you are often close to the price of a finished gallery anyway. What the per-image rate usually leaves out is the work around the edit:

• Culling to a final count, not just removing blinks and blurs.
• Matching your preset scene by scene, rather than applying it blind.
• Retouching on close portraits: skin, stray hairs, an exit sign behind the couple.
• A consistency pass across the whole set, so the ceremony and the reception look like the same wedding.
• Your own time checking it all and fixing what came back wrong.

If you still do the last two yourself, the per-image price is only part of the cost.

What a finished gallery includes

When we say a gallery comes back finished, this is what we mean, in the order we work:

1. Download and check. We download from your link, check that every file opens and reply to confirm the brief.
2. Match your style. Test frames are graded against your preset and three reference frames you send, and checked side by side before the full set is touched.
3. Cull. From the full card down to the count in your package: best expression, sharp focus, no near-duplicates.
4. Grade and retouch. Every frame graded to the matched look, with skin and distraction clean-up on close portraits.
5. Quality check. A pass through the whole set for consistency across scenes and light.
6. Deliver. The gallery and your Lightroom catalogue, so you can open it and change anything you want before it goes to the couple.

You can see the day-by-day version on how it works.

Our prices in Canadian dollars

These are fixed amounts in CAD. They are set by hand and don’t move with the exchange rate.

Fixed CAD matters more than it sounds. If you quote couples in Canadian dollars and pay your editor in US dollars, your margin moves every time the exchange rate does. With a CAD price you know the editing cost of a wedding when you sign the contract, not when the invoice lands.

If you shoot film as well, the packages page has the highlight and feature films and the gallery-plus-film combinations, all in CAD.

When per-image editing still makes sense

A flat price per wedding is not always the better deal, and it is worth being honest about where it isn’t.

• You have already culled. If you cull in camera or in Photo Mechanic and only want a colour pass on 200 frames, a per-image rate may come out lower.
• You only need a light touch. A studio with a very simple, preset-led look and no retouching might not need a full edit.
• Tiny sessions. A 40-image headshot or a family mini is outside what our packages are built for.

Our packages make the most sense when the cull, the grade and the consistency pass are the parts eating your evenings. That is most full wedding days.

Turnaround: 7 business days, or 72 hours when you need it

Standard turnaround is seven business days from the point your link works and the brief is complete. Weekends and Canadian public holidays don’t count. Every gallery package runs on the same clock, in July and in February.

Rush is 72 hours, for +50% on the whole order. On a Wedding gallery that takes C$110 to C$165. Most studios don’t need it often. It is there for the gallery where a couple has a slideshow at a family event or an album deadline you can’t move.

If you send five projects a month, the retainer takes 15% off. That fits Canadian studios well, because the season is short and heavy: June to October, then a quieter winter of elopements and engagement sessions.

How revisions work, and what they cost

Revisions are part of the package price, not an extra. The Engagement gallery includes 2 rounds and the Wedding gallery up to 3. If something isn’t right, reply with notes, and the same editor works them in. Each round takes about two business days from when your notes arrive.

The more specific the notes, the faster the round: “warmer skin in the reception”, “swap these five frames”, “less contrast on the portraits”. The full policy is on revisions and refunds.

Who does the work, and what happens to the files

Our editing team is in Pakistan. Your raws stay in your own Dropbox, Google Drive, WeTransfer, pCloud or Box. We download working copies from your link and delete them once the project and its revisions are finished, unless you ask us to keep them. We don’t use your couples’ images for our portfolio or marketing without your written permission, and we don’t contact your clients.

If you need to tell couples their photos may be edited outside Canada, our post on what PIPEDA and Quebec’s Law 25 ask of you explains what the rules ask of you, and our data processing terms set out what we do.

Try one wedding before you pay for anything

The easiest way to compare is to run one real wedding through it and look at how much of the result you would change.

• Start with the free trial. Your first Gallery project or Highlight film is free, edited and delivered like a paid one, with no card.
• See every price in CAD on packages, and how revisions work on revisions and refunds.
• Look at finished galleries in our work, and the shoot types we take on in what we edit.
• Read the rest in the FAQ.

If the backlog is the real problem right now, read our September and October backlog plan next.