The Framers Forum

Hi all, I wonder if there are many of us that offer digital photo restoration like this to clients and if so, how much you charge for such a service on top of the framing?

Cheers, Pete

we don't - wish we did !! often have old pics to go with the medal framing and many times they need restoration or maybe just copying so the originals can be stored (many are postcards home with treasured memories written on the reverse) .

We take these to a local photographic shop for copying and restoration work.

We just pass on the charge made - anything from £5 for a simple copy to £20 for reproduction smaller and retouched to enhance contrast etc.

How much would you charge - could well be interested in your service (not the framing of course ))

Why not get the ball rolling Pete?

What do you charge for this service?

Ok...happy to do so. I think it is important to distinguish between someone like me who uses photoshop daily as a result of the photography side of the business and a professional photo restoration expert. I have to balance the time taken to restore something against what I could be making on a frame or a photo shoot. Because of that, I limit myself to photos that are no worse off than the one in the video. That one took me about 1.5 hrs to clean up and I charged them £25 for the scan, restoration and high quality archival print.

Some of my clients scan their own photos (I provide instructions to ensure the correct quality), they upload them to a server, I'll take a look at it and give them a no obligation quote. If they are happy, I'll do the restoration and printing for them or I can send the digital file back to them to print if they wish - that can reduced the cost for them if I'm not scanning or printing - prob £15 for this one in that case.

i do a bit, but not really for framing clients

more for my visitor centre clients where the images are bing used in display graphics, or as part of a show

based on the costs in post above, there isnt any money in it

i charge myself out at 50 euros an hr

charge 15 for a scan

a high quality print would be around 6 euros

so i would charge about 96 euros for the job above, although it might of taken me way less time or more,

I do some of this for our customers. And as Mikey says, its often for people with photos and medals. Typical charge is a fiver for a scan (up to A3) and then another fiver for a print with little work. A further fiver if there is a lot of work. I try to emulate the colours of the original photo. A recent one that took an age was a regular customer with a picture of her Grandmother which had "Proof" across the centre. That took some shifting, but it was the only known picture of her Grandmother due to becoming the "black sheep" of the family.

thanks guys...will consider putting my price up I think but not sure the customer would have paid £80 for the pleasure!

if the image had proof across it, that i guess ment its a commercial image

removing the word proof without permission of the photographer is a bit naughty. but i guess it depends on the circumstances


just the equipment costs for scanning and restoration:

decent high quality scanner - 650-1000 ish
decent PC - getting on for 1000
photoshop 800


decent scan is 5-10 min work

processing and retouching, even just levels and curves adjustments etc 5-10 min

printing

archiving etc

i reckon would take 15-30 mins

at the prices being discussed there is no money in doing it

BUT

there are people that do make money but do things in a diff way

I do! I take this sort of work to a local photo lab. Over the years they have done a lot of this for us and the finished result is a continuous tone real photo on real photographic paper, not an ink jet print.

Usually I just guess the restoration price based upon experience and I phone the photo lab to get the print price for the size of photo. I've never lost out so far.

It's good for business, as it usually involves a framing job too!

Its quite true Steve. The scanner was a grand about 5 years ago, my mac cost a grand, but I needed a computer anyway (partitioned drive for PC) then there was photoshop at around £400 purchased direct from the US.

I reckon it takes about 45 mins to an hour withpout serious manipulation which gets me £15. It doesn't pay on its own, but there is always a framing job in it as well so its classed as "marketing"

Anyway, manipulating images on my Mac is loads better than watching most of the junk on the telly.

Re the "proof", the copyright would be with the original photographer if he was alive/trading/ less than 70. No-one knows who took the photo and I retain the manipulated image so the photo owner has the only copy so I reckon its OK.

yep exactly what i ment about circumstances

mark, as for it making money cos there is a framing job too.

NO NO NO. all your doing is using the profit from the framing to subsidise the restoration

if you get a framing job which doesnt need the restoration, dont you charge the same, and for less work?

BUT yes i agree with the idea of using it as marketing.

BUT if you get a reputation for doing it then its no longer marketing its just a whole bunch of jobs that lose money.

No, I aim to make a good profit from the photo restoration, whether I get framing out of it, or not.

The photo lab need to see the photo before they will give me a price, but that makes life too complicated if I then have to go back to the customer and get the price approved. So I quote a price, including my mark up and find out what it's gonna cost when I take it to the photo lab.

Sometimes my profit is much more than I expected!

mark thats not what you said, you implied that the framing ment it was worth doing it

also just for info, the latest inkjet prints, have a waaaay wider colour gamut. have much longer expected lightfastness properties than photolab type prints

Not your average framer wrote:
It's good for business, as it usually involves a framing job too!

Well, I suppose you could think that from what I said, but that's not what I was thinking as I said it! I can't afford to operate like that. LIke everyone else, I need to make a good profit on everything!

I reckon I get some extra business because I can tart up their old pics and a reasonable price, but it is a very small percentage of the business - much less than 1%. If it should develop into something bigger - for instance if someone asked me just to copy his pictures, then I would charge a commercial rate. I did get caught just before Christmas though with a guy who wanted some theatre tickets scanning and printing which he said he would then liked framed but after Christmas. Pics done before Christmas, which he picked up, and never saw the guy again. Doesn't happen often though.

Hi Pete,
There are lots of ways that you can incorporate the cost (time and expertise) of doing the restoration into a valuable package for your customers that will make you a good profit.

I work for PhotoWonder who specialise in supplying photo restoration for businesses like yours and I supply our services to some shops who are sending us 200 orders a year, and they are normal high street shops.

I find that the more you let your customers know that the services are available in your shop (or through your website or other communication outlets you may use) there is a lot of potential to gain revenue for your business.

The best thing about our services is that on top of access to artists who are trained and specialised in restoration, we also offer a flat fee to shops which means that it makes it easy for you to price your jobs for your customers, and you won't have to spend even a minute messing around with the photo yourself, all you do is upload it to our website and when it's ready we let you know.

Some of my customers find that bundling products together with the services like a 12x16 canvas or a frame, for example, can help to "hide" the cost of the service and make the overall product more valuable to customers. I also know some people who offer a basic fee with a "free" 6x4 print and then upsell the service to larger prints with frames - when people see the 6x4s they look so tiny and almost always go bigger!

If any of you would like any advice on pricing up restoration orders we have lots of tips and tricks to help you make the most out of photo restoration. I'm always available on 0208 144 2472.

http://www.photo-wonder.com

Hi Folks
I normally charge £15 - £25 for a photo restoration project on top of the usual costs for framing

Were getting alot of interest in this at the moment from members of family history societies etc

Only down side is takes forever to get the photo perfect which means were not framing when were restoring!!

JL

I charge £60 per hour in, increments of £5 if a job takes 6 min, I would charge £10.
The trick in making enough money at this is to work quickly.
here is the last job I did It took 16 minuets so charged £20 + printing and framing.

If anyone wants any tips I'll be happy to post how I work.

here is another 15 to 20 minuet job his arm was completely missing on the right hand side of the picture.

Nice work, IFGL.

I'd be very interested in any tips you have for speeding up this process.