A camera makes a file. It is not a photograph yet. Everything between the shutter closing and the image reaching you — the color set, the skin work, the distractions taken out, and the judgement about which frames were worth the work at all — is where the training and the hours go. It is the clearest way to tell a professional from someone who owns a camera.
Which is why I hand back a few finished images rather than a hundred half-baked ones. If a photographer sends you three hundred files, that is not generosity — it is the editing left undone and passed to you, with the camera left to make the decisions. Every image I deliver is edited. What these levels set is how far a particular one is taken.
Quick touch-up
$20
Color, exposure and contrast set properly. Blemishes cleared, eyes and teeth brightened, a few stray hairs taken off the face.
LinkedIn, a quick business headshot, anything going straight to social. Actor basic portraits.
Standard editing
$40
Adds color grading for skin tone, flyaways cleaned around the whole head, catchlights lifted, and background distractions removed.
Executive headshots, family portraits. Some personal branding.
Enhanced beauty
$75
Detailed skin work that keeps the texture rather than sanding it off. Hair given volume and shape, subtle contouring, lighting adjusted for depth.
Branding campaigns, special occasion portraits, model portfolios.
Luxury retouching
$150
Upmarket magazine standard. Skin texture rebuilt by hand, dodge-and-burn sculpting, hair reconstructed, complex compositing, every element color-matched.
Portfolio and showcase pieces, fashion, commissions where the image is the point.
Choosing a level
We talk about intent up front, because it shapes the budget. The level for any given image is settled later, at the proofs — when you can see which one is going on a wall and which is going on a profile.