CASE STUDY
The Perfect Portrait Masking Every Time Portrait Masking by SmartPHOTOeditors for a US-based Photography Studio
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Portrait Masking

US-based Photo Studio Saved 40% on Portrait Masking by Partnering with SPE

The client is a professional photography studio based in Minneapolis, US, who provides photography services for portraits, home decor and product staging, social media content distribution, and more. Their artistic perspective and beautifully equipped studio space have been sought after by media content managers, retail stores, and individuals alike. The client’s photography has been featured in prominent local online publications and several local art exhibitions.

The Requirement for Portrait Masking and Touchups

The client had a significant quantity of employee portraits that required professional photo editing to ensure that no additional edits could be performed and protect the integrity of the photo. The client wanted to work with a leading photo editing outsourcing company who could handle the high-volume project and produce impeccable creative results.

The client learned about SmartPHOTOeditors (SPE) after researching several outsourcing agencies, and decided to contract our services due to the following attributes:

  • Proven expertise in current photo editing techniques, as demonstrated by both our online portfolio and respected industry reputation.
  • Ability to provide Adobe Photoshop artists who could study the client’s portfolio and mimic the style to ensure a flawless editing outcome.
  • Ability to work within the client’s tight budget and the short two-month deadline for delivering over 1,000 photos.

Challenges Faced by SPE’s Portrait Editing Team

Throughout this highly specialized photo portrait editing project, SPE was presented with a few challenges:

  • The process of this particular photo editing project was difficult considering the number of photos requiring editing and the brief turnaround time.
  • The client required approval periods for all deliverables, which set the process back due to the conflicting time difference and the limited availability of the client.

Portrait Image Masking Process Followed for This Project

SPE developed a custom process for this project that would maximize our resource’s efficiencies while ensuring the highest possible quality across all 1,000 photos:

  • Per the client’s request and to demonstrate capabilities, SPE started with a trial period, assigning one Adobe Photoshop artist 15 client images to be edited and delivered in 12 hours.
  • The client was pleased with the results and gave the go-ahead for SPE to handle the full-time, 2-month long project.
  • SPE assigned two dedicated photo editing specialists to work with the client on this assignment with an expected delivery of 70 to 80 edited photos per week.
  • The team members received input via Dropbox in the form of JPEG images, all official portraits of the photography company’s employees.
  • Each folder contained a minimum of 25 to 100 images, each requiring individual masking and edits at the SPE team member’s discretion.
  • SPE’s team used Adobe Photoshop to perform the image masking, including background dropping, adding or removing shadows, creating subtle reflections, adjusting opacity, and replacing any missing elements to ensure a stunning, eye-catching result.
  • Different layers were manipulated and carefully composited to adjust opacity and limit the edits as required by the client.
  • The edited images underwent quality control assessment before being delivered to the client via Dropbox every week.
  • The team members received input via Dropbox in the form of JPEG images, all official portraits of the photography company’s employees.

Additional Value Add

  • As a value add, SPE selectively assembled the finished portraits into different categories based on the editing categories and other parameters which indeed helped the client to organize and use the images.

Over 1K Images Delivered in Short Time Giving the Client 40% Cost Savin

SmartPHOTOeditors completed this unique portrait masking project within budget and under the deadline, with the following takeaways occurring:

  • The client was impressed and surprised that despite SPE’s swift turnaround time, the portraits were attractively and delicately edited to match the style of their photography aesthetic.
  • While outsourcing with SPE, the client enjoyed a cost-benefit of 40%.
  • SPE was delighted to add another successful project to our portfolio and conclude the assignment with the promise of future editing work from the client.