What's a photoshop noob worth an hour?

May 30, 2006 12:40 PM

Reasonable rates for very basic photoshop service?

A colleague who considers himself too old to learn photoshop has asked me to help him prepare some images for publication. This will involve scanning about 20 SEM images, resizing them to the specifications of the publisher, and maybe some cropping, rotating, and/or labelling. That's it, he doesn't even want me to color them. I've tried to explain how easy it would be for me to teach him to do it, but he insists on paying me to do it (yes, I've also explained that images come out of the SEM already digital). What should I charge him? I like him, I don't need to squeeze every possible penney out of him, but my time is valuable.

posted by Eothele to work & money (8 comments total)

We hire kids from college to do this at work, and they get £100 for eight hours.
posted by bonaldi at 12:55 PM on May 30, 2006

Few comments here, and I'm not an expert on hourly rates for graphic design monkey work. So maybe this is off base.

But at least $20 / hour. You say your time is valuable -- what is your standard rate or your rate that you get paid for other work? If it's $40 / hour, then I say go for it. If it's $400, then perhaps you'll need to take a paycut.

Another idea is that you can just "quote" the project and not the hours. $400-500? (this is like 1 buisness day, but not for a professional, just for a monkey. $800-$1000 or more is the pro daily rate.) I try my very best never to take any job below $500 -- it's just not enough money to matter a lot. So then I don't do as good of a job.
posted by zpousman at 2:29 PM on May 30, 2006

I like him, I don't need to squeeze every possible penney out of him, but my time is valuable.

How valuable? Do you work a regular, salaried job? How much to you earn per hour? Say it's $10. Why don't you start with that figure. Say you'll charge him $10 an hour and then discount it a bit if you feel like it's beyond his means.

As a professional teacher, I'm deeply saddened by someone saying he's "too old to learn." That's a great way to let your brain shrivel up and die before its time. It's also the sort of thing people say when they've tried to learn something and failed, probably due to reading a poorly written book or studying with a bad teacher.
posted by grumblebee at 2:30 PM on May 30, 2006

I did that kind of work as an intern for a start-up and got paid $10 an hour - I thought it was fair at the time. I guess it depends on what your time is worth, and how long it's going to take you. Normal, for NYC, starting GD freelancers get $25/ hr and up...

What you could also do is say you'll do it for a set sum, say $100, instead of charging 'by the hour'.
posted by savagecorp at 2:53 PM on May 30, 2006

Charging by the hour is the best idea, since you don't know how long it would take. The image could be HUGE or something, in which case you might spend a lot of time waiting on the computer or something.

Also, if they all need to be cropped to standard size, you can set up an Photoshop action to do it for you. Might take ten minutes to setup.

As far as how much to charge, well, just charge him whatever you want. He asked you to do it, so what does it matter what other people charge for the same work?

I would probably do it for $50, but I might ask for up to $500 or so if I thought I could get it.
posted by delmoi at 4:10 PM on May 30, 2006

DerailFilter:
I know quite a few people that I consider "too old to learn (photoshop)"... Some are even in their 40s...

There are a LOT of prerequisites to learning how to do stuff with photoshop, such as learning the computer in the first place, understanding what pixels are, and what DPI is. Then if youre printing, you have to know what resolution will give a good picture, when to use filters, how to straighten out images, how to correct strange aspect ratios... These are a LOT things to learn for something you may only do once.
posted by hatsix at 4:39 PM on May 30, 2006

These are a LOT things to learn for something you may only do once.

That has nothing to do with age.

I'm saddened by the idea of someone thinking he's too OLD to learn something. I'm in my 40s, and one of my goals is to learn calculus. But I have trouble with basic arithmetic. I will have to work my way through that -- and then basic algebra, precalculas, etc.

I saw so many people in my parent's generation quit using their brain once they got older, and I saw what it did to them. No thanks!
posted by grumblebee at 6:10 PM on May 30, 2006

I said that he considers himself too old to learn photoshop in order to pre-empt "why doesn't he just do it himself" posts, as he and I have discussed and excluded that possibility. I was not actually describing him, because his actual mental state isn't really relevant to the question. So don't be sad, grumblebee, he and his brain will be fine. (After all, he is publishing SEM's)

And thanks for the info everybody.
posted by Eothele at 6:52 PM on May 30, 2006