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Real estate photography invoice template for Technical Support

hey everyone alex here the other day i posted a story on my instagram that basically said what kind of videos would you guys like to see me post on youtube and i got quite a few answers back but the number one thing that i got asked is where do i find my editors how do i outsource all of my photo editing so that's what i wanted to go over today i feel like i've been asked this more than anything else and i think it'll be really helpful for you guys to hear my process uh why i chose to start outsourcing and you know that whole thing so let's get into it alright guys so let me just tell you that all of these tips are basically to make your business as efficient as possible when i first started doing my real estate photography business i had no idea what i was doing i was editing all the photos myself and it was just taking up so much of my time and let me just go ahead and start to tell you guys that story so basically i started out with a sony a6000 and it had really good dynamic range on it and so what i would do is i would just take one single photo and that photo i would basically put it into lightroom and i would make a mask over the windows and i would lower the exposure and basically do a window pull that way not how you're supposed to do it but i didn't know anything and i wasn't looking up youtube videos i didn't take a course so you know i was making a lot of mistakes but i was just kind of getting my way through it then and it seemed like it was working okay and my clients were decently happy with it so that's what i was doing and then i ended up switching to canon and i got a canon 6d mark ii and with that camera the dynamic range was nowhere near as good as what the sony was i don't know the stats of both of them but i just know that i was trying to do the same process where i'll take a single exposure image and then mask those windows and there was zero data in those windows it was just white you know you would lower the exposure and all it would do is get gray and i was like oh this is not working really well so after a little bit of research from there i decided that bracketed images was the way to go so i started taking images going you know one stop or two stops below exposure ad exposure and overexposure and i was starting to use the hdr merge method within lightroom and that kind of worked but the photos were not i was realizing you know during this process i was looking at all of the really high-end photos out there and i was like this is not giving me the result of those high-end photos that i was trying to achieve so i decided to figure out what that method was that was actually going to get me that final result so i found out that it was either you know using a flash ambient method or it was manually blending the exposures together and then cutting out the windows so i wasn't using flash and i still don't use flash i have one but don't really use it but i was working on figuring out how to be really good at that kind of editing where i was manually blending them and cutting out the windows so i got to where i was able to do it and i was good and happy with the final image but it took way too long it's like i'm spending the days shooting and then i'm spending hours and hours and hours editing these photos so it just got to a point and i was working a job at that time so it's like i was working a job i was doing these photos and then i was working on all of the editing process trying to get them as good as i possibly could and it just there's just not enough hours in the day so what i ended up doing is i went on fiverr and i was looking for real estate editors i didn't know where to look i knew that that was a good outsourcing website so i went there and i found a few of them on there that had some pretty high ratings i chose one of them and the photos came out really good i was like wow that cost me so little money compared to what i charge and it's better than i can do you know these people this is all they do is edit photos and it's this specific kind of photo it's not like they're just all over the place all kinds of editing this is what they do day in and day out they are editing real estate photos they're manually blending them they're cutting out the windows they have the process down so that was all great and wonderful and it was working out well i liked this guy on fiverr we started to kind of build up a relationship but with somebody that had so many reviews and you know he was doing really well on fiverr he was loaded up with different clients of his that were sending him photos so a lot of times it would go over 24 hours and with my days i was trying to get it to where i was delivering photos before like 10 am usually my first photo shoot of the day is at 10 am so if i can get everything done uh from the day before before like 9 30 then that is prime that way i can have the whole day shooting you know go through the process of sending off the photos at night getting them back in the morning and going through the day again so it was getting to a point where that wasn't possible there was several several times where it was like i'm getting the photos back you know late in the afternoon the next day and then by the time i'm at those photos kind of putting my finishing touches on them it was a two-day delivery time and i was telling people one to two days but i was really trying to keep it with within one day and you know especially if some if i had a client that was asking hey i really need these tomorrow morning it's like i didn't have any control over that i didn't have you know my editor was essentially just too busy so what i started to do was look for different websites and different things that uh different avenues of finding editors so what ended up being the way to do it and this is the way i suggest you guys to do it is go on to facebook and i will put some links down below of a couple different groups but there are really fantastic facebook groups for real estate photography and videography for that matter and in those groups are just tons of editors i'm telling you it must be like a third of the group is editors and the other part is the actual photographer so go in there and you have a couple options i would go ahead and search through there you know you can search within a group and just search for you know photo editors and see what kind of thing pops up for that but you could also put on post on there yourself and say hey i am looking for a editor i need them to be able to deliver within 24 hours i need manually blended images for hdr and kind of just put out what you need for that and you will get a ton of replies on there i have a lot of people ask for my specific editor i do not give that out because i give that editor a pretty good amount every single month and i don't want to get into the situation where i was with fiverr where it was like i'm just being drowned out by everybody else so he's basically my primary editor i am his primary client and i just keep it that way um sorry but there are tons and tons of good editors on there and so what i would do is once you have a list of people that are like hey i'm an editor i'm an editor i'm an editor i would take all those editors and send them a uh i don't know 12 to 20 images like go ahead and make a dropbox file put some raw images in there and send every editor that same exact batch of images and say i need these edited can you please do a free trial for me all of them will do it all of them will say yeah no problem i will edit those photos for you and so that's a perfect way to try it out of course everybody will be sending you a portfolio it's like here's my photos here's what i've done but send them an actual test if you have the same photos and you can compare them side by side to side that is the way to do it so send them make sure in that like dropbox file that you do send them a bunch of different scenarios you know some really big bright living rooms some dark bedrooms if you have it some single exposure outdoor shots just a bunch of different things maybe some more difficult shots that would uh you know it's a little more time consuming to edit if you can sift through some photos to send them i think that is the ideal way to do it another point to be made here guys is don't delay on finding an editor do it now if i could go back to when i very first started this business i would tell myself on day one find an editor because it is so important for growing i right now shoot anywhere from you know on a slow day two different listings on a busy day five different listings and that's like books throughout the whole day so if i'm doing that and then i have to come home and edit you know i will never be able to sleep i'll never be able to see my family i'll never be able to do anything so it is really really important that you are basically buying your time back in that editor is the first crucial way to do that and not only does it buy your time back they're gonna be better than you no offense to you i'm sure you're probably a good editor but they're gonna be better it's just what they do like i said that guy on fiverr you know this is what they do day in day out they have the process down and i always take the photos at the very end you know i get them early in the morning i put them into my lightroom i put my final touches on them you know maybe adjust highlights and exposure i adjust the outdoor photos there's a few different things that i like to do just to make sure i know for sure that they're going out in a way that you know they're going out to my client in a way that i'm proud of i never just go okay download and send i feel like that's a irresponsible thing to do to build up your brand properly one last tip guys is the pricing of everything i will tell you that personally i pay one dollar for a three exposure hand blended image and then i pay 50 cents for a single exposure image so most of the time for all of my outdoor my exterior photos they are one exposure unless it's like underneath a patio and there's uh you know it's really dark under there and then like maybe next to the pool is extremely bright i will do a three bracketed exposure there but for the most part i will just do a single exposure so i pay 50 cents for single exposures and one dollar for uh hand blended multiple exposure so there's a lot of different prices out there i would say to not spend over like a dollar fifty an image i try to keep it under a dollar i do have a couple backup editors as well just in case you know my main editor gets too busy and with those i've actually negotiated a lower price because well technically there's not as good so i mean they're still really good and i'm still like proud to be able to deliver those photos but you know i'm my primary editor for a reason so the backups i actually have a basis with them where it is 85 cents per final image for the uh multiple exposure images and then 50 cents again for the single exposure images so guys i know that was like a lot of information right there you will probably have some questions for me please leave a comment down below i will try to answer all of the comments that you guys leave and that's going to be it for me on this one alright guys thanks for watching peace [Music]