This post is a tad different from other "how much to charge" kinds of posts.

At this morning's department meeting I was asked to do another couple photo manipulations of before/after images for remodeling using our log products (original sample here).

One of the new requests is to have the same type of thing but using an interior shot of a room like a basement (finished or unfinished) or family room. The original manip I did, imperfect as it is, took me the better part of at least 12-16 hours to get to that point (I've never claimed to be fast or good at this chopping stuff).

This got me to thinking that maybe the company should farm this work out to someone faster & better at this task. This could potentially save the company money since they wouldn't be paying my wage rate to do the chop at my slow-ass pace (and the end result would most likely look better).

So.... I guess the question is... If one of you pros (and pros only please) was given only the photo of an existing log home interior how long would it take you to create a before/after shot along the lines of my original shot (rough estimates measured in total hours and cost in US$)? You'd likely have to come up with externals and textures to "decorate" the room in the before side of the image so that searching would tally into the hours for sure.

Again I'm not looking for exact numbers or binding estimates and I know that a lot would depend on the starting photo. I'm just trying to get a ballpark figures to see if it's worth investigating the feasibility of getting an actual professional photo manipulator for the project rather than me hacking something together.

If it helps to gauge the time I can post the photo I started with and end result. The resulting photo would be used in everything from web site graphics to vinyl banners/billboards. Would a pro require licensing on the image? What caveats do I need to be aware of with this type of contracting out labor?

could you post that? i'll give you a quote! cheers

I started with this (original is a tiff 4288px by 2855px):

And I took that to this (flipped horizontally for the before/after):


So we want to do a similar treatment with a photo like this (not necessarily this photo but something along this line I'm sure):

The end photo would need to be a dated looking room. Stucco or old paneling walls, old bar, old furniture, dated carpeting, etc. It can be done I'm sure but I just don't know if my skills are up to it where I could finish it in a decent period of time.

Again I'm only trying to get an idea of what we'd expect to pay if we contracted with someone. I have zero authority to actually hire this out. But I thought I'd pitch it to the company president if it's feasible financially and time-wise. I'm positive we'd need the resulting PSD/PDB file(s) as we'd be using it in different promotions.

The problem stems from not having any existing before/after photos of these types of projects. Our company has been focusing on new homes for so long that the remodels were just a side bit that didn't get much attention when it came to having photographs taken. We don't have any adequately impressive remodel jobs currently happening so we can't simply take photos.

ok, since this is quite a lot of work for each picture, i'd set a price per image, how many do you think you will need?

cheers

Don't make it public, i might be tempted to make an offer with 5% less and 2% faster delivery

Right now it's only the one interior shot and another exterior photo like I already did but just a different house.


Let the bidding war begin!

go ahead dude noone is stopping you

Nah, it was a joke , i'm totally against dumping. Besides, money has a great potential to ruin relations, i prefer not to meet or know my competition beforehead