Unlimited revisions · Photography
Unlimited revisions in photography: what is normal
Healthy photography contracts cap retouching (often 1-2 rounds); 'unlimited edits' turns a fixed fee into open-ended post-production.
Typical range
1 to 2 rounds of retouching on selected images included, with further edits or additional selects billed. The number of delivered/edited images is defined up front.
Off-market
"Unlimited edits until the client is happy" with no cap on rounds or on how many images get the retouching treatment.
One-line fix
"The fee includes retouching of [N] selected images and 1 round of revisions. Additional selects or rounds are billed at [rate]."
What we see
Retouching is where photography's version of scope creep lives. Culling, color, and detailed retouching are real hours, and an unlimited-edits promise ties the end of the job to a subjective sense of satisfaction rather than to a defined deliverable.
The healthy contract defines two numbers: how many final images are delivered and edited, and how many rounds of revision are included (commonly one or two). Both matter, because 'unlimited revisions on 40 images' is a very different commitment from the same words on five.
Client paper that promises unlimited editing is usually written without understanding the post-production workload. Naming the number of edited selects and the included revision rounds, with extras billed, keeps a fixed shoot fee from silently becoming open-ended retouching labor.
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