Your Handy Guide To Image Editing Outsourcing
How to make sure that you have picked up the right outsourcing partner?
--
Images are an integral part of businesses across the board. While some businesses need quality images to run their advertising campaigns, marketing activities, and other promotional work, for others, well-edited photos are part of their core operations. The rise of online businesses has further boosted the demand for high-resolution product photos. In essence, no matter what business you are in, you will need images at one point or another. Images that you use for specific purposes have to be in tune with what exactly you want to portray.
For example, if you are a real estate agency that has to post thousands of images on the internet as part of online property listings, you will have to get them edited to get the desired effect.
Similarly, if you are a professional photographer, mere raw images won’t serve any purpose unless you get them edited to suit the needs of your individual clients. To meet this increased demand for edited and enhanced photos, companies often fall back on outsourcing.
Choosing the right service provider
No doubt, outsourcing image enhancement, and photo editing services have picked up as a trend across industry verticals, but simply jumping the bandwagon is not likely to give you the desired results. To make the most of your decision to outsource photo editing services, you have to do a little homework.
In this article, we will discuss how you can outsource photo editing services successfully. By the end of this write-up, you will have a fair understanding of the attributes of an ideal photo editing company/service provider.
Analyze your requirement
It is true that the majority of businesses are leveraging outsourced photo editing services to boost their marketing and sales campaigns. But if you decide to take a plunge into this practice without analyzing your own requirement, chances are, you might not get the desired results. So, it is advisable to constitute an in-house team to assess your photo editing needs.
Take into account the number of photographs you have to edit on a daily basis, how many resources are engaged in this process, and what is the average cost you are incurring for the job. If you need enhanced images on a regular basis and have a sizeable team of experts to do the job, it makes perfect sense to outsource the photo enhancement services.
Conduct detailed research on service providers
Simply typing ‘photo editing services’ in the Google search bar will throw hundreds of service providers at you soliciting your clientele. It is quite easy to go for the first few search engine results, but it is a good idea to look for service providers that suit your individual needs.
While some photo editing companies take bulk assignments, others might have a very small team of photo editors. Your ideal outsourcing partner should have a robust team of photo editing experts with varied skills ranging from photo retouching, image enhancement, to specialized skills.
Look for industry experience
While there is no dearth of photo editing outsourcing companies out there, you need a service provider that has a proven track record of delivering customized results to a global clientele. Ideally, your photo editing outsourcing partner should have at least 15 years of experience in the field. One smart way to check out the quality of services rendered is to go through the client testimonials.
You can even cross-examine the customer feedback by contacting the existing and erstwhile customers of your prospective vendor. Check out the portfolio of your intended outsourcing partner, it will give you a clear understanding of their capabilities.
Check out the service delivery
Only a well-established mannequin, jewelry, or a real estate photo editing company can give you the desired quality of services in a cost-effective manner.
Look for a service provider that has ample experience in delivering quality services to a diverse clientele.
The service delivery model should give you enough flexibility and scalability to alter the size of your remote team as per the fluctuating needs. Flexible hiring and service delivery models also enable you to maximize cost savings.
Go for dedicated photo editing experts
While a majority of service providers will take up your photo editing project and send you the completed work as per the service level agreement, there are better options that give you dedicated experts. These experts work exclusively for you as your own employees albeit from a remote location.
This outsourcing arrangement not only gives you better control of your outsourced process but also enables you to drive the desired quality of services. You can even collaborate with your dedicated team in real-time to give timely feedback on the services rendered.
Look for infrastructure
No matter how good your prospective outsourcing partner is, you must give due importance to the infrastructure they have. Apart from hardware, software, and technology access, you should also check out the location of the service provider.
Ideally, your photo editing outsourcing partner should be located in a safe business district. Demographically, they should be near the hubs of education and leering. Such service providers can easily meet all your talent requirements.
Check industry certifications
The mark of a good photo editing service provider is its industry certifications. Apart from client testimonials, certifications reflect on the capabilities of your photo editing outsourcing partner. Ideally, your service provider should be ISO certified for quality and data security. Only such a vendor can guarantee the safety and security of your image data.
Insist on free samples
Your prospective photo editing service provider should also be willing to do a free sample for you. With this facility, you can easily assess the quality of services and the turnaround time. Make sure you get a free sample done before hiring a team of dedicated photo editing experts.
Sign a detailed service delivery agreement
Once you have ticked on all the attributes discussed so far, it makes sense to outsource your photo editing. Service level agreement (SLA) is an important document of any outsourcing arrangement.
Make sure that you cover all your service requirements in this agreement. Things like the number of resources working on your project, reporting hierarchy, turnaround time, data confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement with individual photo editing experts should be duly covered in the SLA.
Summing up
Your decision to outsource photo retouching services to a third-party vendor should be based on your individual needs. Once you have identified your needs, the next big step is to choose the ideal outsourcing partner.
If you follow the points discussed in this write-up in a step-by-step manner, there’s nothing stopping you from getting the desired results. What is more, you will be able to save at least 40% of your operational cost by outsourcing your photo editing services in a phased and planned manner.
