Photo editing is a must-have thing to outshine your e-commerce product on different e-commerce platforms, social media, campaigns, and so on. One study reveals that the highest product return rates happen due to inconsistent product outlook. So, to build consumers’ trust and make your brand memorable, there is no alternative to photo editing. But the question is: in-house vs. outsourced photo editing – which one do you choose to fulfill your business requirements?
An in-house photo editing expert is the best solution when you prefer direct control over image editing. But it might cost advanced Photoshop charges, in-house resource costs, and so on. On the other hand, you can outsource photo editing when you need high-end retouching services to boost your business sales.
To ease your selection process, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of both editing services and how you determine when it’s best to outsource or invest in an in-house team.
Advantages
- Controlling: You have direct control of the editing process, ensuring that the final images perfectly match your brand vision and style guidelines.
- Availability: Editors are on-site and can handle urgent edits or last-minute changes quickly.
- Communication: Easy, real-time communication between photographers, editors, and creative teams, allowing for faster feedback and adjustments.
Disadvantages
- High operational costs: Maintaining an in-house team involves salaries, software licenses, hardware, and training expenses.
- Time-intensive: Photo editing is time-consuming. In-house editors may get overwhelmed with large volumes, leading to delays and diverting focus from other critical business tasks.
- Limited Scalability: Handling large volumes or seasonal spikes can overwhelm in-house teams, causing delays and bottlenecks
- Potential Bottlenecks: When editors are multitasking or stretched thin, turnaround times can suffer, especially during peak periods or product launches
Pros and Cons of Outsourced Photo Editing
Outsourced photo editing is the business practice of hiring image post-processing services from third-party services, such as companies and freelance editors. Instead of editing images yourself or with an in-house team, you send your raw photos to the outsourcing partner, who performs tasks like retouching, color correction, background removal, cropping, and other adjustments.
However, this approach is especially useful for professional photographers, e-commerce businesses, social media influencers, and others who need high-quality edited images. Outsourcing photo editing pros and cons are mentioned below:
Advantages
- Time Savings and Faster Turnaround: Outsourcing frees photographers and teams from time-consuming editing tasks, allowing them to focus on core activities like shooting and marketing. Professional editors deliver consistent, quick turnaround times, often working around the clock to meet deadlines.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Outsourcing eliminates the need to invest in expensive software, hardware, and salaries for full-time editors. You pay only for the editing services you need, converting fixed costs into variable costs and saving significant overhead.
- Access to Professional Expertise: Outsourcing connects you with skilled editors experienced in advanced techniques like color correction, retouching, and complex manipulations. This expertise ensures high-quality, polished images that meet industry standards.
- Consistent Quality: Professional editing services follow standardized workflows to provide uniform quality and style across all images, which is critical for maintaining brand identity and client satisfaction.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Outsourcing allows easy scaling of editing capacity to handle fluctuating workloads, such as seasonal spikes or large projects, without the burden of hiring or training new staff.
- Access to Advanced Technology: Outsourcing partners invest in the latest editing software and tools, like Photoshop retouching tools, enhancements, and specialized effects, providing high-end results without your direct investment.
- Improved Workflow Efficiency: Delegating editing streamlines your operations, helps meet deadlines, and boosts overall productivity by allowing your team to focus on strategic tasks.
Disadvantages
- Less flexibility: Some photo editing agencies lack a professional customer support team. But collaborating with Graphic Aid, you’ll experience 24/7 customer support.
- Dependency on External Providers: Relying on outsourcing partners means your workflow depends on their availability and reliability. Graphic Aid works with you whenever required.
Real-Life Scenarios: What Works Best?
There are several real-life scenarios to select the right photo editing partner, such as:
E-commerce brand with daily product uploads
Best fit: Outsourced photo editing.
Business Requirements:
- Fast turnaround
- Consistent background removal and color correction
- Cost efficiency for high volume
- Scalable operations
Key reasons behind outsourcing:
- Scalability & Speed: E-commerce brands often need to process hundreds or thousands of product images daily. Outsourcing provides access to large teams of skilled editors who can deliver high-quality, consistent images quickly, keeping up with rapid product launches and catalog updates.
- Cost Efficiency: Outsourcing eliminates the need for hiring, training, and maintaining an in-house team. Also, you don’t need to invest in advanced photo editing tools, like Photoshop, Lightroom, etc., which add value to your business.
- Consistency: Professional outsourcing agencies, like Graphic Aid, use standardized workflows to ensure uniformity across all images, strengthening brand identity and boosting customer trust.
Real business scenarios:
Suppose an online fashion retailer needs to upload 150+ new product images daily. By outsourcing, they receive professionally edited images overnight, allowing their in-house team to focus on marketing and sales rather than post-production.
Creative agency with strict branding
Best fit: Hybrid (in-house & outsourced).
Business Requirements:
- Precision and brand consistency
- Creative, complex editing (e.g., composites, typography overlays)
- Fast collaboration and real-time feedback
- Intellectual property protection
Key reasons behind outsourcing:
- Creative Control: Agencies with creative or complex branding guidelines prefer in-house photo editing experts who can collaborate with designers and ensure the image aligns with the brand’s vision and client expectations. By outsourcing to a reputable photo editing agency, you’ll get the same professional-level retouching services as your in-house team.
- Rapid Revisions: Tight feedback loops and immediate access to editors mean faster turnaround for last-minute changes or creative adjustments. Professional post-processing agencies also offer you editing flexibility whenever you need.
- Confidentiality: Sensitive projects or proprietary visual styles are easier to protect and manage when you’ve an in-house creative team. Outsourcing to Graphic Aid, you’ll also experience data security and confidentiality.
Real business scenarios:
A luxury cosmetics brand requires every campaign image to match a specific color palette and mood. Their in-house editing team works closely with art directors to fine-tune every detail, ensuring brand consistency and creative excellence. On the other hand, when you outsource image retouching services from Graphic Aid, you’ll get the same level of creative work within the delivery time frame.
Photographers with seasonal high-volume needs
Best fit: Outsourced photo editing.
Business Requirements:
- Fast delivery for batches of photos (e.g., weddings, events)
- Style matching and quality consistency
- Cost-effective scaling during busy seasons
- Flexibility to reduce costs during the off-season
Key reasons behind outsourcing:
- Flexibility: Outsourcing allows photographers to scale editing capacity up or down depending on the season, without the overhead of maintaining a full-time staff.
- Time Savings: During peak periods (e.g., weddings, holiday shoots), outsourcing frees photographers to focus on shooting and client relations, while experts handle post-production.
- Expertise: Outsourcing partners bring specialized skills for complex edits, ensuring professional results even for large batches of images.
Real business scenarios:
A wedding photographer faces a backlog of 800+ images after a busy summer. By outsourcing editing, they deliver galleries to clients faster and maintain high quality, all while continuing to book new shoots.
How to choose between in-house vs. outsourcing your photo edits
Not all photo editing requires outsourcing. If you have enough time and retouching experience, some tasks may require your personal touch. But before finalizing between in-house vs. outsourcing photo editing, consider several factors, including:
- How many images do you need to edit for your business or photography?
- When is your deadline to submit those edited photos?
- What’s your budget for photo retouching?
- What types of image editing do you need to fulfill your brand/business requirements?
Now that you’ve all the answers at hand, let’s check which edits and when is the best time to outsource and in-house from the next section!
When to Choose In-House Editing
In-house editing is the best when you’ve to perform:
- Ongoing projects: If you need ongoing photo editing support for an e-commerce site that you’ve done earlier, an in-house photo editing team is the best solution.
- Creative or brand-sensitive editing: If your product photos require a creative or brand-specific touch, you can rely on your in-house team or outsource.
- Real-Time Collaboration: When teams need to work side-by-side (virtually or physically), in-house editing ensures faster iterations and clearer feedback loops.
When to Choose Outsourced Editing
Outsourcing from a renowned post-processing agency offers you several photo editing services, including:
- Background removal: Removing unwanted or busy backgrounds from product photos, portraits, food photography, commercial, or other images gives a polished and professional outlook.
- Clipping paths: With this technique, experts cut out a path or shape from an image so that the product image can be placed in a suitable background (i.e., solid, transparent, or white).
- Resizing: Each e-commerce platform has its own image sizing preferences, where resizing meets those needs perfectly.
- Retouching: From removing blemishes and distractions to give a professional outlook is a simple yet tedious task. Outsourcing eases the retouching process.
- Image masking: Another technique for separating an image or subject from the background is image masking, which is effective for complex edges, hair, or fur. It requires a lot of attention to detail.
- Drop shadow: Adding a shadow effect gives your product images a realistic appearance and makes your products look more appealing, which requires skilled photo editors.
- Ghost mannequin: This effect is useful to give online shoppers a physical store-like shopping experience. Expert editors remove the mannequin and provide a ghost mannequin effect to highlight apparel design, fabrics, fittings, and so on.
- Color variants: Want to showcase your products in a new color or highlight product variants with different color combinations? An expert photo editor can work with your existing product photos to alter their colors and add more variants.
How to Choose the Right Outsourcing Partner
To choose the right outsourcing partner, consider several factors, including:
1. Expertise & experience
Look for renowned photo editing companies with a strong track record and demonstrable experience in specific types of photo editing, such as product photography, fashion, real estate, portraits, e-commerce, wedding photos, etc. Also, ensure they’ve experience in your particular industry or niche.
Range of Services: Ensure the photo editing partner offers the specific editing services you need, like background removal, ghost mannequin effects, or advanced retouching.
2. Communication & workflow management
Choose a post-processing partner, like Graphic Aid, for responsive communication, ideally with a dedicated project manager. Ensure your partner can communicate effectively and respond promptly to your questions and feedback.
3. Review portfolio & samples
Thoroughly review their portfolio to see examples of their work, ensuring it aligns with your desired style and quality. Ensure they are using industry-standard software like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom and are up-to-date with the latest techniques.
What to check:
- Editing style (does it match your aesthetic?)
- Attention to detail in retouching, masking, lighting, and color balance
- Types of projects they’ve handled (e.g., portraits, products, real estate, weddings)
4. Turnaround time & pricing
Confirm that the outsourcing partner can meet your deadlines with reliable turnaround times. Compare pricing structures among multiple providers to ensure competitive rates without compromising quality. Also, recheck and clarify any additional fees upfront to avoid surprises.
What to ask:
- How fast is their standard turnaround for your volume?
- Are there extra charges for rush jobs?
- Do they offer bulk pricing or subscription plans?
5. Sample edits & testimonials
Request sample edits of your images to evaluate their editing style and attention to detail. Read client testimonials and reviews on both the provider’s site and independent platforms to gauge reliability, professionalism, and client satisfaction.
What to look for:
- Consistency in customer feedback (positive or negative)
- Comments about communication, reliability, and issue resolution
- Reviews from businesses similar to yours (e.g., agencies, product sellers)
6. Data security & confidentiality
Ensure the partner has robust security protocols, such as secure file transfer methods, cloud storage with encryption, and signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). Protecting your sensitive images and intellectual property is critical.
What to confirm:
- Do they use secure file transfer methods (e.g., SFTP, encrypted platforms)?
- Are NDAs or confidentiality agreements offered?
- What’s their internal access control policy?
7. Technology & infrastructure
Ask about their photo editing technology and online interfaces for managing your image edits and communication. Graphic Aid’s experts use advanced Photoshop techniques to deliver high-quality edits efficiently and handle large volumes.
What to Ask:
- What tools do they use (Lightroom, Photoshop, AI workflows)?
- Do they have a dedicated team or freelancers?
- Do they offer API integration or cloud-based dashboards for workflow tracking?
Conclusion
Though it’s tricky to choose between in-house and outsourced photo editing, you can consider several factors, including your budget, in-house editing expertise, timeline, and amount of creative control you need. When you figure out what works for your business, utilize it instantly!
