Post-processor who wants to start up a photo post-processing service

[Pat Smith]

I'm a competent post-processor who wants to start up a photo post-processing service. I'm not sure if I'll be able to earn a living from it, but it'll bring in at least some cash, I'm sure.

It was only recently that I learned that a lot of money can be made from post-processing photos for non-tech-savvy photographers and anyone in general who wants to get more out of their images but don't want to bother learning complex software. I learned this shortly after brushing up on my image manipulation skills, taking hundreds of hours of online Photoshop courses. I wanted to see if I could use my skills to generate an income. I finally came across a web-page which claims that a lot of money can be made in starting up a post-processing service. After doing further research, I learned that a lot of photographers post-process photos for non-photographers to make extra money on the side. This knowledge made me excited; my head was filled with ideas.

For the past while, I've been looking through random post-processing sites to see what other people charge for their services. This is a way of determining what I should charge my clients. By this point, I think I've got the prices sorted out. I'm about to create a blog to host my service on. If my blog turns out to be successful and brings in cash, I'll pay for hosting and will set up a website for my service in an attempt to improve my cash-flow.

The only things I've left to do is give people examples of things I can do with photos to show them that I'm a truly good at restoring and enhancing images. In addition to the aforementioned, I must figure out how I can get my clients to send me their photos digitally (perhaps through email or hosting sites such as MediaFire?), and how they can pay for the service. I don't know if PayPal would be the best choice for making transactions - I'll have to look into this further.

I really think I'd like doing this because I have a blast tinkering with image-editing software; it's honestly one of my favorite things to do. If this could earn me money, It'd be great.

I luckily know quite a bit about SEO, and know how to promote things without having to resort to spam tactics. I'm quite confident that I'll be able to drive traffic to my site, but what I'm not sure of is how much cash I'll be earning from this - it's hard to say. My prices will likely range from $10 or less to $30, and I'm not sure if people will be willing to pay this, but probably considering that this is cheaper than most of the competition. My most advanced enhancements/restorations will cost $30 or more, while my least advanced ones will cost $10 or less - but I'm still in this process of getting this worked out.

Now I have a question is: Do any of you photographers or non-photographers do post-processing for people? If so, do you make much of an income from it? I'd be interested in knowing how much cash you're able to bring in with your post-processing, and how worthwhile it would be to set up a service such as this.

Anyway, thanks.