i'm so angry at this woman...i could just spit.

[janetg]

k, here's the deal - i took on some post processing for a lady in maryland. i know she doesn't read this board, and frankly - i wouldn't care anyway. she's about to get an email from me she won't like.

she cannot take a consistently colored, white balanced, exposed photo to save her life!!!! she is all over the place. she can't meter, she can't focus, she uses shutter speeds of like 1/25th...in broad daylight, and wonders why her photos suck! ugh!

anyway - she sends me this email - she's not paying me for the last batch of photos i did...because there are some oversaturations (in her opinion).

lesson learned: no more images for her and she's getting the email. i'm just going to have trouble keeping it nice.

thats all - thanks for having this space here for me to vent!

[LWimages]

Ah, what freelance has to go through.
I've done a couple of those.
I usually take a break, take a couple of deep breaths, go outside - smoke a cigarette and play with my dogs, and come back to rewrite the letter.
In both times, I was able to rewrite the letter in a nicer way but I would also state that if your photos were nicer, then you wouldn't have to have them PP'ed in the first place. But not in those exact words.

You can do it!

[snidow]

I would keep it professional and very short, if she doesn't pay she can not use the photos. After all, she said they were over saturated so to me that means she wont be using them, if she does, law suit time I would not offer to redo them either.

[janetg]

i'm just going to have to share this...here is the raw file screencap from one of the images she is complaining about...

i kept this one pretty how shall i say....innocuous? meaning, there's nothing really identifiable in the photo ...

now this is the raw image - you can tell already just from looking - it's crapola! there was no fixing this one - i just adjusted the best i could and made it black and white. i really should have sh**canned it, but she had 2 of these, identical. i never delete all renditions of an image -

ugh!

[brad]

wtf is it?

[kenw]

shrimp?

[boxofrocks]

Maybe if you sent her that and explained what a "red channel" was...

[janetg]

haha, yes it's shrimp! but man....i'm starting to calm down...

[georgep6506]

Janet,

I think you have a collections issue on your hands. I took two years out of my career, and took care of problems such as these. This lady knows exactly what she is doing as this is a typical ploy to avoid paying. I would write back in a very nice and polite manner, that saturation is easily fixed. Then, resend her slightly desaturated files. THEN ask for your money. Not starting out nice is the biggest mistake you can make. I know your are insulted, rightfully so, but this simply is a business decision.

And for what it is worth, I have been stiffed several times. So if it happens, just tighten up your fences, stronger contracts with collection and interest terms. You will always lose a 1/3 going to an collection agency. But many of them aren't afraid of suing and 9 times out of 10 you will get your money.

Good luck,


George Payne

[mjdmike]

Originally Posted by brad

wtf is it?

That's funny Brad - my exact thoughts.

[ndsimm]

so I can shoot crap and then pay you to fix it???

How cool is that!!!



sorry, jk
what type of contract/agreement do you have in place with her? time to start enforcing the terms

[LWimages]

You'd be surprised how much PP work I get from amateur photogs.
I like the ones for PJ work. They'd pay me triple per image in order to get the images out within 3 hours.

Originally Posted by ndsimm

so I can shoot crap and then pay you to fix it???

How cool is that!!!



sorry, jk
what type of contract/agreement do you have in place with her? time to start enforcing the terms

[huxley]

forgive me if this is a no no in the freelance world.... but....

i would ask to see some sample images first when the client asks for your services. and if they are "crappola" then i would tell the potential client to find some other sucker. having an idea of what you are going to edit would help you determine a "ball park" figure of cost for the client, and let you know what your getting into.

[CaptainTom]

You might suggest to her that hiring a professional food photog might end up being cheaper than all the PP that is needed now.

[thelegend1472]

Looked like a jacked up apple pie to me