Image Salon
Verdict: Image Salon provides only limited retouching services, while you will have to pay about $0.30 per photo if you order color correction. It specializes in eCommerce, portrait, and some other types of retouching but can’t perform such advanced manipulations as day-to-dusk.
This wedding photo editing service performs culling and post-production tasks. The main disadvantage is that you will have to pay more to get your photos edited in a specific style. When placing an express order, you can select one of the available 4 styles.
✔ Placing an order doesn’t take much time. If you decide to place an Express order, you just need to sign up and do it. However, in case you want the retouchers to follow your requirements regarding the style, you need to place a Profile order.
✖ No wedding packages. Image Salon doesn’t provide discounts for wedding photographers who need to edit many photos taken during the same event.
✖ Only basic options. While Image Salon offers only basic standard services such as color correction and photo retouching, their competitors provide a variety of services, including high end image retouching.
✖ Photo culling is relatively expensive. You will have to pay $0.05 per picture. Besides, many of similar companies provide culling and color correction in one package. If you decide to order color correction provided by Image Salon, you will have to pay extra.
Image Salon provides real estate photo editing services, which include such basic manipulations as WB, brightness, and contrast adjustment. However, they can’t perform such complex photo manipulations as HDR bracketing.
✔ Work with time-tested software. The team uses Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop when editing pictures.
✖ Long turnaround time. When you get assigned a photo editor, get ready to wait until the project completion for up to 10 days. It will take them 2-3 days to complete an express order, depending on the complexity of the retouching task.
✖ Only basic levels of editing. The basic level includes the adjustment of WB, contrast and brightness. The third level includes some extra manipulations. It allows you to reduce color casts and delete the camera and flash reflection. However, you won’t find more advanced manipulations on the list.
✖ Basic sky replacement. Image Salon will replace the sky in real estate photos to make it blue. However, they don’t perform such complex manipulations as day to dusk.
Image Salon provide portrait and headshot retouching for different genres, including boudoir, family, and baby photography. However, many clients noticed that the result doesn’t always look detailed.
✔ Assigned editor. After placing a Profile order, you will get assigned an editor who will study your requirements and follow your style. Most competitors will also follow the style and requirements of a client, and you won’t have to overpay for it at least $0.06 per image.
✖ Edited photos require revisions. According to Image Salon reviews, the skin tone in some photos looks unnatural. Besides, you might notice some stray hair.
✖ The blog has an amateurish feel. You can read a variety of articles on Image Salon about the process of placing an order. However, the blog doesn’t contain many articles with expert pieces of advice and tutorials for retouchers or photographers. Besides, the website doesn’t get updated often.
✖ No freebies. You will get a 25% discount on your first order, however, the service doesn’t offer any free tools for new clients.
This product retouching service is popular among those who need to improve photos of products and food. The retouchers can create a clipping path and perform basic image correction.
✖ A price might increase after you place an order. While you will see budget prices on the website, you should be ready to pay a higher price once you get a price quote. The managers will examine your images and requirements and set a custom price for your project.
✖ No gallery. On the website of Image Salon, the samples of the projects are combined with the price list, which is why it’s impossible to examine them in detail. You won’t see before-and-after photos there.
✔ Provide photography and video services. Besides ordering editing, you can ask the team to shoot photos and videos in accordance with your requirements.
Image Salon also offers a custom package of services. It includes a variety of services that aren’t covered by the basic package, for instance, background removal. However, if you take a look at their portfolio, you will see that the team doesn’t specialize in more advanced editing.
✖ No advanced photomontage services. These retouchers can remove stray hair from a portrait or other unwanted objects from the background, but they don’t perform more complex manipulations.
✖ No 24/7 client support. The team works from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm EST (GMT-5). If you have any questions, you might need to wait until the managers are available. At the same time, some other services are ready to communicate with clients 24/7.
✖ No mobile apps for quick order placement. Unlike some alternatives, Image Salon doesn’t have a native app.
Image Salon also provide color correction services. They can fix issues caused by wrong camera settings or poor lighting.
✖ Limited information about the service. You won’t find a standalone service in the price list on the official website of Image Salon. It is included in portrait and product retouching services. It’s impossible to see before-and-after examples of such retouching.
✖ No information about data protection. Image Salon doesn’t provide any information about the protection of the data uploaded by its clients.
✖ The revision politics is difficult to understand. It’s not clear whether the price for revisions is included or you have to pay extra for them. On the website, the team states that they will make the necessary revisions within 1 business day.
✖ No free trial. You won’t be able to test out their services for free, but the company offers a free onboarding call to those who have placed the profile order.
If you take a look at the price list of Image Salon, you will see that it doesn’t include fixed prices for all types. To order culling, you will have to pay from $0.05 per photo. Your wedding photos will be enhanced by an editor assigned to your project. It will cost you from $0.35 per image.
The prices for real estate editing services depend on the complexity of the task and range from $0.75 to $7 per image.
The prices for portrait retouching services also depend on the complexity of a task and range from $2 to $10 per image. If you want to get your product photos edited quickly, express photo retouching will cost you $1 per minute. To get the sky replaced, you will have to pay $2 per image.
If you are interested in shooting photos and videos, keep in mind that real estate shooting will cost you from $95 per property. Food, eCommerce, headshot, and event photo sessions will cost from $175 per hour. Video shooting services cost from $350 per hour.
Verdict: FixThePhoto provides an extensive range of editing services. You can ask the team to perform culling, straighten your image, delete noise, tweak colors, and perform other tasks. In addition, the company provides advanced retouching, including photo manipulation and montage.
FixThePhoto allows its clients to test out its services, while Image Salon doesn’t provide such services. Besides, you can visit the online store of FixThePhoto to get a variety of free effects for Lightroom and Photoshop.
Unlike Image Salon, FixThePhoto allows you to get your batches of wedding photos edited at an affordable price. For instance, you can order the Wedding Light package for $99.
Verdict: What makes WeEdit.Photos different from Image Salon is that they specialize in editing wedding photos. The company can perform basic tasks, perform culling, and adjust contrast and brightness. In addition, it can edit the background, improve the makeup and skin tones, remove visible imperfections from portrait photos, etc.
If you visit the official website of WeEdit.Photos, you will see a lot of samples of the edited photos there. It will allow you to make an informed choice about ordering their services. Unlike Image Salon, this service has a support team available 24/7.
Besides, this service has a shorter turnaround time than Image Salon. The team will quickly accept your order, discuss your requirements, enhance your photos in accordance with your guidelines and send them back within 24 hours.
Verdict: ShootDotEdit is another retouching service for wedding photographers. Unlike Image Salon, this service mostly specializes in tweaking colors. It works only on batches of images. If you take 500-700 pictures during a photo shoot, this service might be not the worst choice though its prices are quite high.
Like Image Salon, it doesn’t have a portfolio page on the official website. Besides, you won’t find before-and-after image samples here. What makes it unique is that it specializes in building gallery websites for showcasing your photos.
Verdict: Like Image Salon, Color Experts International provides a variety of services. You can ask them to edit your portrait, wedding, real estate, eCommerce, and other photos. However, they mostly cater to the needs of users who need to improve batches of pictures.
You can ask them to create a photo album, perform HDR blending, remove the background, and perform other tasks. In addition, this company can edit your promotional product videos.
Verdict: Photza specialize in editing portrait, wedding, and product photos. Besides, they can perform various manipulations, such as background or object removal.
Like Image Salon, Photza provides editing of different levels. On their website, you can find detailed information about manipulations included in each of them. The turnaround time is 2 days.
Verdict: IIPVAPI provides a range of services for different niches, from basic image processing to creating illustrations and restoring old photos. Unlike Image Salon which can work on images for up to 10 days, IIPVAPI can send you your edited pics overnight. Besides, the company takes care of the safety of edited pictures.
Verdict: Unlike Image Salon, Pixelz has a narrower area of specialization. The company caters to the needs of eCommerce professionals. Its team can remove the background from your pics, align objects, crop and resize your images.
These professionals work with layers, create a clipping path, apply the ghost mannequin effect, and perform retouching tasks.
The standard turnaround time for the company is 48 hours. In addition, you can pay more for the Enterprise package to get your images back more quickly. The company offers discounts to its clients and enables you to get 10 pictures edited without paying a dime.
Verdict: Ephotovn perform ] retouching tasks of different complexity. For instance, the team can edit portrait, model, and newborn photos. They also provide a range of eCommerce services, including background removal. The team can apply the ghost mannequin effect, edit your pictures using masks, create a clipping path, add shadow, etc.
While Image Salon doesn’t offer a trial, Ephotovn enables you to test out the services they provide. You will get your edited images back within 24 hours.
Verdict: RetouchGem will help you enhance your portrait, body or product images by tweaking colors, removing imperfections from the face, improving the body shape, and performing other tasks.
In addition, you can ask them to create a design for your website or work on your graphic design project. They can design web banners, printed materials, custom packaging solutions, etc. The team will send you the result in 2 work days.
Verdict: Revivoto specialize in editing real estate photos. They will perform basic edits within 24 hours. Besides, they can remove unwanted items, apply the day-to-dusk effect, and perform virtual staging.
Unlike Image Salon, this service allows you to test out its services for free. Another advantage is that you can request an unlimited number of revisions regardless of the ordered service.
