How to make money editing photos - 8 useful tips
The allure of setting your own hours, working from home and owning your own business sounds pretty darn tempting. If you already enjoy editing pictures in your spare time, now you're wondering how you can make money with your skills. If you've been surfing social media, you'll find tons of individuals and companies offering photo editing services, and guess what, some are killing it. If you want your piece of the pie, there's no reason why you can't get it. If you already have experience and skills, then the tips in this post will help you start monetizing your photo editing services.
Photo editors can make money in different ways. Many professional photographers hire a photo editor to organize, edit and export all their photos from a shoot. This will not only save them a lot of time, but also reduce their workload, making you a valuable asset. As an editor, you'll earn money by retouching images, grading colors, removing objects, and cropping backgrounds to make life easier for your clients.
If this all sounds up your alley, let's get down to the first step of the process: learning how to monetize your skills. With the 8 tips in this post, you'll learn a variety of practical ways to make money editing photos.
While some take more time than others, this, like any business venture, takes time to grow. However, over time you will build a large network of loyal clients who keep bringing you new work.
I've listed these options from fastest to slowest in terms of how quickly you'll see dollar bills in your bank account. Depending on how committed you are to making money editing images, some of these methods will prove to be more lucrative than others. Let's go for it!
1. Post your services on Fiverr
Assuming you're starting from scratch, Fiverr is a great place to start. In a nutshell, Fiverr bridges the gap between client and artist by putting everything in one place. Instead of searching for a competent editor, individuals and companies can use Fiverr to find hundreds of great photo editors to work with.
This means an easy way for you to get instant access to work. On Fiverr, you'll find plenty of job postings that require your editing services. You can browse and bid on the ones that interest you the most to start earning a few extra bucks.
As usual in the world of photo editing, it's a numbers game. If you want to make big money editing images, you will need to offer a lot of different jobs on Fiverr. While not everyone has to pay a lot, it adds up quickly over time.
To be successful on Fiverr, make sure you have a solid portfolio and a well-written gig description. At the end of the day, it's all about the customer. You want it to be immediately clear that you are an experienced professional and can do anything they need.
After you get your first few jobs, make sure you get ratings and reviews from all your clients. These become essential in building your reputation and trust with potential clients in the future. With a long list of great reviews and happy customers, you're sure to get more and more work as a photo editor.
You can register on Fiverr and post your services here.
2. Write tutorials for websites
As you have already seen, there are thousands of tutorials covering every photo editing topic. From YouTube to websites, there is a huge amount of content out there. So who exactly created all those articles written about how to do x, y, and z in Lightroom?
The truth is that many tutorial sites hire experienced photo editors to write detailed tutorials for their site. With writing gigs like these, you get paid per word you write rather than per article. In most cases, you can expect anywhere from $0.02 to $0.08 per word. This may not sound like much, but it adds up quickly when you start writing 1000-4000, word articles on a certain topic.
Just imagine, $0.08 per word at 4000 words is $320. Especially if you're good at a particular editing program, you can finish the whole thing in a day or two.
That's some nice money just for sharing your knowledge with the internet!
If you enjoy writing and love teaching others, then this is the perfect way to make money as a photo editor. You can find job offers for tutorial authors on sites like UpWork or Freelancer. In some cases, larger websites will have a dedicated author page where you can apply to start creating content on their website.
Try searching for "(example website) writing" and it will usually bring up their hiring writers page if they have one.
3. Reach out to photographers who may want to make their jobs easier
As a photo editor, it's best to build a regular income by working with different photographers. Try to reach out to photographers you know or have mutual contacts with, so the first meeting will be less awkward. List your photo editing services and rates and how you can help make their lives easier.
With that, don't just approach someone who takes pictures. Only approach photographers who you know shoot in bulk and handle thousands of photos per job. People who shoot weddings, events, sports or headshots are your perfect candidates. By saving them the editing work, the rate you charge is a small price for any busy photographer to pay to get some free time back.
There are many ways to reach out to photographers. Since you want to talk to people you already know (or know you), start with social media. Check out Instagram or Facebook to see what people are doing. If someone is running a photography business, it is often very easy to spot them. Check out their website to see what types of photos they take and how your photo editing services might fit into the mix.
From there, send them an email with links to your portfolio and past experience. Just like Fiverr, you need to convince them why you are the perfect person to work with. Once you start building trust with one or two photographers, word of mouth will spread quickly, and soon more and more photographers will be knocking on your door. With an established group of clients, you can start making decent money editing photos.
4. Create a YouTube channel to share your skills
If you are not interested in working for someone else, creating a YouTube channel can be a profitable idea. Note that it will take a while to get up and running. With some dedication, your ad revenue and subscriber count will skyrocket.
You must have at least 1000 subscribers on YouTube and 4000 hours of total watch time in the last year.
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