Today, everyone thinks that they are a photographer. A simple look at the number of people who post photos on social media sites is one indicator of the number of amateur photographers who are out there. Instagram, for example, has 300 million active users who share nearly 70 million photos a day. Looking at the entire internet shows an even greater indication that the whole world is in a photo frenzy. Did you know, for instance, that users share an estimated 1.8 million photographs a day online?
What is the best photo you have taken in the last year? Was it that photo you took of the senior girl who just happened to schedule her outdoor shoot on a day when the area was supposed to get a light dusting of snow? The snow that turned into eight inches before it quit. The snow with big, fluffy flakes that looked so big they resembled something a photoshop editor would have filtered in. No matter how great a picture is though there is always the temptation to make it even better. The photo retouching, however, can end up taking longer than the photo shoot itself. Eliminating that neon yellow crosswalk sign behind the beautifully photographed senior, for example, is a task that might best be left to a professional photo editing service.
Whether you are a portrait photographer who needs to edit the shots from three weekend weddings that you booked back to back, or you are a photographer for a local marketing company that gained five new clients in the same week, professional photo retouching can often take more time than you have. As a result, some of the top marketing companies and professional photography studios have realized the benefits of outsourcing the details of photo editing.
The most frustrating part of the photo editing process can be the end result. If you spend hours making digital color corrections or improving the texture of part of an image and the first person who looks at your work immediately notices the retouching, your time has been wasted. A study by the National Press Photographers Association, for example, found that viewers are able to tell whether a photograph was created by a professional or an amateur most of the time. In fact, 90% say they can tell the difference between professional and amateur work. How frustrating to use your valuable time and not get the results you desire.
Rather than waste your time on the minute details of photo editing, many professional and amateur photographers alike outsource to comprehensive photo editing services for their high quality imagery and, in some cases, photos. These services include:

• album design
• background removal
• clipping paths
• culling
• restoration
• photo color correction
• photo retouching

While some of these professional services offer a pay-as-you-go structure, other companies offer a monthly flat rate which includes a set amount of digital editing time. If you are the kind of photographer who wants to shoot and let someone else edit, you might do well to hire someone else to professionally retouch your photos.