Product photography can be a costly proposition. From getting the right lighting to capturing the images, it requires a significant investment even before it comes time to edit the photos and get them gallery-ready. You might be tempted to cut costs by doing the retouching yourself—but professional photo editing is challenging to master, to say the least, and you might lose just as much money in the long run if you spend hours tearing your hair out in Photoshop.
What’s a cost-minded business owner to do? In this post, we’ll take a look at photo retouching services that can provide big value to your business—without cutting into your profits.
But first, let’s take a quick look at the average cost of professional product photography in 2022.
Product Photography Costs Per Day
If the shoot requires a studio, it will cost around $400-$1000. Depending on the studio, the price may be lower or higher, but be careful—you get what you pay for. If additional equipment or props are required, the costs might be even higher.
Product Photography Costs Per Item
Per-product pricing is great for bulk photography since the cost per product decreases as the number of products increases. Depending on the photographer and the number of items, it might cost $20-$100. If you need multiple angles for each product, the costs will be higher.
Product Photography Costs Per Image
Per-image pricing is often the most affordable option for professional projects. Depending on the total number of photos, the price per image could vary between $1 and $50. If you’re in need of a large number of images, it can be an economical choice.
No matter which option you choose, the product photography isn’t cheap! Then comes post-production, and you might expect to have to DIY this critical step or else shell out for a professional editor. But in this next section, we’ll take a look at how photo retouching services can help your budget stay slim without sacrificing quality.
Is Photo Retouching Cost-Effective?
In short—yes! Here’s how the right photo retouching services can be both cost and time-efficient for product photography.
1. Efficient and Practical Styling for Studios:
The cost of product photography styling varies from studio to studio. Whether it’s photographing interiors, products, or architecture, styling is essential. However, styling can increase your budget—even your post-prod budget. The more complex the styling, the more likely it is to introduce issues that need to be fixed in post: unwanted shadows, creases in the garments, elements that need to be removed, etc. With retouching services, you can fix these issues in seconds and get perfectly styled photos without needing to spend big on editing later.
2. Lower return rates
Unlike in physical stores, e-commerce buyers only have product photos to rely on to make their purchasing decisions, so product photos must look as accurate as possible. According to Shopify, over 20% of online purchases are returned, whereas physical retailers have return rates of about 9%. This can majorly impact your bottom line.
Photo retouching services reduce return rates by making sure that your photos look as much like the physical products as possible. That might seem counterintuitive—after all, wouldn’t an undoctored image represent the product best? Not necessarily. Photography isn’t a perfect representation of reality. Due to the lighting, styling, or camera settings, your product photos might turn out looking subtly or dramatically different than the products look in person. Retouching can help restore a realistic appearance. If you’re in the apparel business, you can even use photo retouching services to create ghost mannequin photos, which accurately represent the 3D dimensions of your products without the expense of hiring models. In the e-commerce world, accuracy and transparency are key to satisfying and retaining customers.
3. Brand yourself as a professional
Even subtle adjustments to product photos may significantly impact how attractive they are to customers. Retouching services can make a variety of small but efficient changes like eliminating smudges on your backdrop or smoothing a model’s flyaway hairs, leaving the images cleaner and more polished. Don’t let your brand be damaged by minor flaws when it’s easy and cost-effective to showcase your products at their very best.

But it goes beyond simply fixing flaws. Retouching services can help you quickly brand your photos by making it easy to remove and replace backgrounds, adjust colors, and more. Make your photos pop and customize them for different marketplaces and sales channels with just a few clicks.
All these edits can be done on a small budget. For example, with autoRetouch, the price for fixing one image ranges from $0.13 to $0.65. With the bulk edit feature, costs can be even lower. Compared to hiring professionals, leveraging retouching services offers you more freedom and flexibility at a low cost.
Bottom Line
No matter how you choose to go about retouching your product photos, it’s best to make an informed decision by studying all the available services and avenues. Not every company has the power to hire in-house experts, but that’s okay—you can still build an impressive brand by doing it yourself. Photo retouching services offer an excellent middle ground for small businesses, allowing them to go toe to toe with big retailers in the busy world of e-commerce.