Setting your schedule, working remotely, and running your own business all sound very appealing. You might wonder how to make money editing photos with your skills if you enjoy editing pictures in your spare time.
Many people and businesses make money editing photos. If you’ve looked around on social media, you’ll see that some of them succeed. There is no barrier in the way of you to make money editing photos. The advice in this piece will help you, in the beginning, to monetize your photo editing services if you already have the necessary skills and knowledge.
Now you might ask how to make money editing photos. That’s why we are here. We will explain everything in this article. The things we will cover in this article are mentioned below:
- What Is a Photo Editor & What exactly does an editor do?
- Why Is Photo Editing Important?
- Skills you need to become a successful photo editor.
- Top 10 ways to make money by editing photos
So there are a lot of things to cover. Let’s get started.
What Is A Photo Editor?
The job of a photo editor is to go over the pictures and pick out the best ones, after which they are enhanced using software and made ready for usage in online or print publications.
Although photographers use powerful hardware and carefully consider the pictures they take, raw images are rarely used without at least some editing.
What Exactly Does A Photo Editor Do?
An image is retouched by a photo editor to remove flaws and enhance technical details for a professional appearance. Additionally, a set of pictures are kept together aesthetically by this professional.
The process of choosing and placing images for a publication is sometimes referred to as photo editing.
To put it another way, photo editors maximize a photo’s potential and prepare it for publication, whether in print or digital form.
You can work as a freelance private photo editor and collaborate with various photographers if you are interested in the digital retouching sector. There are numerous fields to work in, including weddings, fashion, food, and portraits.
The best thing about being a photo editor is that you can work with clients from all around the world online. Photo editors can easily earn money editing photos online. This increases your possibilities to make money as a photo editor and contacts for your professional development while allowing you to work from home.
Why Is Photo Editing Important?
Editing makes the pictures come to life, make them appear their best, trigger feelings, and tell a story. Editing enables photos to serve the exact purpose they are used in promotional materials, magazines, and websites.
Correction of errors and removing unwanted aspects from photos are two more frequent uses of editing. When working with a constrained amount of time or space, editing might help provide the impression that the settings are excellent.
To generate a style that you wouldn’t find in real life, some photography themes call for creative editing. This could involve adding effects, removing backgrounds, or merging parts of two images. You can simply start photo editing work from home.
Skills You Need To Become A Successful Photo Editor
A usual qualification for a photo editor is having a working knowledge of the fundamentals of photography. This can assist them in comprehending what a photographer or publication would like to see from an editorial position.
Most of the time, a photo editor collaborates with photographers and other providers of visual content. They offer directions, recommendations, and tips to assist photographers and camera professionals to produce photos that adhere to the demands and standards of the publication. Additionally, a photo editor needs to be familiar with the following Adobe Creative Cloud software:
- InDesign
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
- CorelDraw
- Lightroom
- Bridge
If you want to work as a photo editor, think about developing the following skills:
1. Understanding Of Social Media
Social media is a huge tool for creative workers to share their work and find fresh talent. You can connect with potential employers by using social media to draw attention to your work. Additionally, you can expand your professional network by getting in touch with other people in this field of business.
2. Abilities To Manage Time
Most publishing and printing jobs are projects with deadlines. An editor may manage many projects and teams of editors and photographers. A photo editor’s responsibilities include cooperating with other departments and prioritizing what needs to be done first.
3. Creativity
Using photos to enhance the aesthetic appeal of a book or magazine is one of the main duties of photo editors who deal with images.
They choose picture design, image size, image resolution, and visual content density. Using images corresponding to the text, they create storylines, progressions, and linear edits. An essential talent for a photo editor is seeing how the image will appear in print.
4. Abilities To Make Decisions
For publications like magazines, a photo editor selects photos and other visual content. To match the content or theme of the printed material, they pick and place the photos. A photo editor also needs to be capable of making decisions.
5. Business Skills
A photo editor’s services can be used by businesses to hire more freelancers and photographers for certain events or projects.
On behalf of the business, photo editors may also hire full-time photographers and make arrangements for the necessary equipment. Their position calls for strong negotiating and decision-making abilities.
6. Organizing Skills
There could be numerous pages with photographs in a book or magazine. Before settling on the aesthetic best for the publication, photo editors may process several variations of each shot. They frequently deal with a lot of text and image material. They, therefore, gain by being precise in how they set up their work environments, supplies, and instruments.
7. Skills In Communication
Photo editors collaborate with writers of original content, graphic designers, publishers, and members of the management team to complete the layout of the finished product. To produce a visually pleasing book or magazine, their advice is essential. As they speak to various stakeholders and experts regularly, strong verbal and communication skills are crucial.
Now let’s jump into the content you have been waiting for. Here are the top 10 ways to make money by editing photos
Top 10 Ways To Make Money By Editing Photos
1. Promote Your Services On Fiverr
If you’re just getting started, Fiverr is a terrific place to go. In a word, Fiverr reduces the distance between clients and creators by centralizing everything. Individuals and businesses may find hundreds of excellent picture editors to work with on Fiverr without having to look far and wide for one. There are many freelance photo editing jobs posted on fiver daily.
You’ll now have a simple way to access your work immediately. Numerous job advertisements requesting your editing talents can be found on Fiverr. To start earning a little more cash, browse through and place bids on the items you are most interested in.
It’s a numbers game, which is how things usually go in photo editing. You must submit several different bids on Fiverr if you want to earn money editing photos online. Even while they may not all pay much, they soon pile up over time.
A strong portfolio and a well-written gig description are essential for success on Fiverr. The customer is everything. You want to establish right away that you are a capable expert that can handle any request they may have.
After landing your first few jobs, ask each client for a rating and review. These become essential in the future to aid in developing your credibility and gaining the trust of potential customers. You may be sure that as a photo editor, you’ll start obtaining more and more work if you have a big list of positive reviews and happy clients.
You can register with Fiverr and advertise your services there.
2. Sell Prints Of Your Artwork Or Stock Photos.
There’s a good chance that you also take images if you’re editing them. You can sell the pictures you already have instead of working with clients. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to sell photos, especially if you make distinctive composite images. You’re offering them works of art rather than simply standard printouts.
You can also upload your edits to stock photo websites and see if anyone responds. With stock photo websites, you must generate a large number of sales before you start to profit seriously. For this reason, it’s crucial to have a sizable stockpile of edits to publish before you begin.
People will adore it like any work of art if you have a distinctive editing technique and the ability to make photographs seem larger than life. Before you know it, you’ll be selling your distinctive editing techniques and having your images hung in homes.
3. Writing Website Tutorials
As you’ve already seen, every aspect of photo editing is covered by thousands of tutorials. There is an obscene amount of stuff available on websites and YouTube. Who wrote all those tutorials on how to perform x, y, and z in Lightroom?
The fact is that many instructional websites use professional picture editors to write in-depth instructions for their pages. You’ll get paid per word rather than per piece when accepting writing tasks like this.
You may typically anticipate paying between $0.02 and $0.08 per word. This might not seem like much, but as you begin to write articles of 1000–4000 words about a certain subject, it quickly adds up.
Think about it: $320 is $0.08 x 4000 words. You might complete the entire project in just one or two days, especially if you are proficient in a specific editing program.
That’s a rather sizable sum just for sharing your knowledge online!
This is the ideal approach to make money as a photo editor if you enjoy writing and teaching others. On websites like UpWork or Freelancer, you can find job postings for tutorial writers. Some bigger websites may offer a writer’s page where you may apply to start contributing content to their website.
If they have a writer hiring page, all you have to do is try searching “(example website) writing” to find it.
4. Make Your Own Courses In Photo Editing
You probably have a social media profile where you post your photographs or photographic manipulation, so I’m ready to bet on that.
In that case, you need to act quickly.
Being appreciated by your audience is a wonderful feeling, but it can also be used to market your abilities.
Similar to YouTube, you may make video tutorials that are compiled to build editing courses on particular topics, such as how to learn photo editing or how to make a specific image manipulation. If people love your work and are interested in learning your secrets, they will pay money to study under the best.
Make sure you have a following before you start creating courses. If not, you’ll lose a lot of time since you’ll have no customers. Start by offering your audience free value if you are brand new to this.
Start a newsletter, create a youtube channel, or provide daily editing tutorials on your Instagram story. Eventually, your audience will overflow with passionate followers who will leap at the chance to purchase your premium, exclusive tutorials.
5. Speak with photographers who might want to reduce their workloads
Working with many photographers is your greatest hope for generating a steady income as a photo editor. For a less awkward first meeting, try contacting photographers you know or who you have relationships with, mentioning your photo editing costs and services and how you can aid the client.
Be careful who you approach if they take photos. Do not contact photographers unless you are certain they shoot large quantities and manage thousands of images per project.
Your ideal candidates are photographers specializing in headshots, sports, events, or weddings. Your fee is a tiny price for any busy photographer to regain some spare time because you relieve them of the editing burden.
There are several ways to get in touch with photographers. Starting with social media is a good idea because you want to talk to individuals that you already know (or who already know you). See what people are doing by looking at Facebook or Instagram.
It’s usually quite simple to tell if someone is running a photography business. Visit their websites to learn more about the kinds of images they capture and how your photo editing services might be of use.
After that, send them an email with links to your portfolio, and your work is documented. You must persuade them, just like on Fiverr, of why you are the ideal candidate for the job.
As you establish trust with one or two photographers, word of mouth spreads quickly. Before long, you’ll be receiving more and more visits from photographers. You can start earning well from editing images after you have a solid client.
6. Inform Those Around You Of The Services And Skills You Possess
By telling practically everyone you know about what you do, you can attract work in one of the simplest ways possible.
Mention your new photo editing endeavors if the topic comes up, and if they know of someone who would be interested, ask them. Regardless of whether they do, this sows a seed that causes people to consider you if something relevant arises.
As an example, a lot of the retouching work I’ve done for myself has come from friends or friends of friends who are aware of my skills. They chose me for the position because they appreciated my work and were confident I could assist. You can take the same action for yourself.
Although it takes longer to see results, this approach is a straightforward way to set yourself up for future success. Just like anything else in life, if you ask for it, you’ll be astonished at what you receive, even if it happens in a couple of months.
7. Create A Photo Retouching Business
Consider creating a formal retouching company if you’re serious to make money editing photos. A few businesses similar to this exist online, like Fix The Photo.
The services they provide and the pricing ranges they offer are highlighted on the websites of these businesses.
The appeal of this is that it is simple to scale this company model by bringing on remote workers from all around the world. You can take on more jobs with the help of others than if you were to handle everything yourself.
Although it takes time, starting your own business has potential long-term benefits. This should only be considered if you wish to make photo editing a full-time career rather than a successful side business.
8. Make A Youtube Channel To Show Off Your Talents
Establishing a successful YouTube channel can be a good idea if you don’t want to work for someone else. Remember that starting this will take some time.
Your subscriber base and ad revenue will grow fast if you put in the effort. This is one of the best ways to make money online for photo editing jobs without investment.
On YouTube, you must have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of total watch time. You can start making money from the adverts on your video as soon as you check those options.
There are many beginners out there who are eager to pick up the very same abilities you already possess.
You still know someone else will value you, even if you’re not the best in the world. You can gradually build up a respectable monthly income by providing these suggestions in well-produced YouTube videos.
Perhaps you shouldn’t devote your entire day to YouTube at first. As you develop, start spending more time on your channel, adding fuel to the fire. Making videos on picture editing will soon be enough to cover your rent.
9. For Local Businesses, Edit Social Media Photos
Online or social media marketing help is frequently needed by brick-and-mortar businesses. Strong social media presences are advantageous for nearby restaurants, bakeries, boutiques, and coffee shops.
Most small businesses are unable to afford to employ a full-time social media manager, so they end up managing their accounts. As a result, there are frequently unappealing feeds with photographs that have not been properly edited.
Search the social media accounts of local companies and note which ones may use some assistance. Then introduce yourself and explain how your expertise in photo editing will help them grow their company.
10. Create Photo Products
If you love dogs, especially a particular breed, you can use images of your pet to create the following:
- calendars for the wall
- canvas clothing bags
- iPhone cover
- coffee cups
- Stickers
Create a free account by going to Teespring.com. Some items on the previous list can be made using your images.
In their training center, they have tutorials and articles. They’re a print-on-demand company, so you don’t need to keep inventory on hand.
You can create a free account and start designing gorgeous print-on-demand products like t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, phone cases, and more.
How Much Money Do Photo Editors Make?
A photo editor in the United States makes an average yearly pay of $54,276, according to PayScale. You may, however, make between $50,000 and $75,000 a year, depending on your background and skills.
Remember that your earning potential as a freelance photo editor will influence your limitations. The number of working hours and the sort of editing you provide must therefore be considered when determining a salary.
Simple editing, for instance, is considerably more modest than extensive retouching for portrait and fashion photos.
You’ll need to devote more time to each photograph in the second scenario and become proficient in more sophisticated editing methods, particularly for skin retouching. Of course, all of this additional work is rather expensive, so that is something to consider.
