Post Production

The essential part of modern photography is post-production. This is the work the photographers do ‘behind the scenes’ after your shoot is completed. In fact, digital photography has now added a middle step, that being post-production between the physical shoot and the printing or uploading of post-produced images.

In film days post-production was achieved in the dark room during the print process to provide you with quality finshed prints. Digital post-production is done on a computer so that we can re-create digitally what we used to deliver on film in the darkroom. The bonus with digital is that we are now able to enhance the images with greater accuracy and detail, but this does take time.

Post production should be seen as an essential part of image making and a budget should be allocated specifically to post production costs. Nothing looks worse than unfinished images and if you are paying for a shoot you want to make sure you are getting the highest quality for your outlay!

Post-production is usually charged at an hourly rate on top of the photographers shoot fee. The cost for post-production varies on what is the end result you are looking for and can cost anywhere from half the price of the shoot fee to the same cost as the shoot fee per hour.

Of course, there are degrees of post-production applied depending on the situation. Advertising and fashion require very high levels of post-production work, weddings and corporate work can also involve high levels. On the other hand, personal photography may have lower levels and the costs may be included within the 'shoot fee', rather than as an additional cost.

Post production requirements on a job are largely dependant on your initial photographers brief. However, some post-production costs such as colour-correction may be a standard across all images within your shoot and some production costs may be dependant on other factors such as variances in locations.