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TRIX TO FIX YOUR PIX
For both the stager and realtor, GOOD quality photography taken of a property that is a necessity. For the listing agent, the photos you take of your client’s property show the “product” you are marketing and trying to sell. For the home stager, photos of your work capture and depict your staging talent.
Therefore it is to the advantage of BOTH the realtor and stager to take and display the ABSOLUTE BEST PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES you can. This is especially important NOW as more and more people use the internet as a means to prescreen a home or a stager they are interested in.
Knowing this… the other night I went online and looked at listings on Realtor.com for properties currently for sale in the metro-Chicago market area. While there are those realtors that are doing a good job, I have to admit much of the photography I that agents use to market a listing concerns me.
Below are a few common mistakes I saw occurring repeatedly. (Please note, while I did the best I could to repair the photos of properties on Realtor.com, I did NOT have access to the original digital image file. So "clean-ups" are of the images are NOT as good as they could be. All "original" images are shown to the left.)
BIG SKY: When taking interior photos, be aware of how much ceiling you "capture". Unless the ceiling has an interesting architectural feature or finish... there is no need to place so much emphasis on it? In the right hand picture I cropped the image and warmed its tones up. TOTAL edit time: 3 MINUTES!
TWIST & SLIP: Kitchens have many "clean" vertical & horizontal lines, so when they are photographed, especially when using wide angle lenses, they tend to look all-skewed-up. Note how crooked the refrigerator and stove look in the picture on the left... which were straightened up in the picture on the right. TOTAL edit time: 2 MINUTES!
BRIGHT LIGHTS: Sometimes when taking pictures towards the sun, the resulting pictures can have a "hot spot" that blinds the viewer. One way to clean up the image is simply crop the picture. Notice how when I did this I ended up with a BETTER view of what the property being featured. I also punched up the contrast. TOTAL edit time: 2 MINUTES!
ICY COLD: I saw this particular "problem" occurring on both INTERIOR and EXTERIOR photos of homes. An easy edit that only required I add more red and yellow to the picture to help warm it up. TOTAL edit time: 2 MINUTES!
DATE STAMPED: This goof REALLY surprised me! WHY would a realtor want to let potential buyers know how long a property has been on the market? The stamp will NSTANTLY create doubt with shopper if the property been on the market long for a long period of time. In my edited picture the date stamp was removed. Then... I cropped it and fixed it by straightening it out creating TRUE vertical lines. TOTAL edit time: 4 MINUTES!
DAY NIGHT: This is one of the easiest photo edits one can make. Just by punching up the brightness, I took a "dusky" dark home into what now looks like daylight. Ultimately, more of the house was revealed. TOTAL edit time: 1 MINUTE!
SLIP SLIDING AWAY: Doesn't the realtor's original photo look like the house is about to slide into a big hole in the backyard? While this is a MORE COMPLEX adjustment... once learned it is easy to do over and over again. TOTAL edit time: 3 MINUTES!
GREASY SLIDER: Here again I fixed up the "slide" and punched up the brightness just a bit! I corrected all vertical lines so they are truly straight up and down takes a bit more time... but once understood it's easy! TOTAL edit time: 4 MINUTES!
ON FIRE: Occurring mostly on interior shots, this error is just the opposite problem of ICY COLD. This photo is way too HOT. My edits required the addition of more blue and touch of green to cool it down. Again, I cropped the image so that the ceiling was not being featured. TOTAL edit time: 4 MINUTES!
BLEACHED OUT: Simply by increasing the contrast and decreasing the brightness... LOOK at how easy it is to add LIFE to a washed out photo. I cropped the image tighter to show MORE of the house and less of the sidewalk. TOTAL edit time: 3 MINUTES!
TOWER GIANT: THIS is one of the most common problems I see with exterior photos of large condos. Look how odd the building looks on the left... kind of like a pyramid. TIP: Vertical lines MUST always be STRAIGHT up and down... many CAMERAS skew these lines all up. Correcting back to reality is easy. TOTAL edit time: 2 MINUTES!PS: I personally use PhotoShop to edit photos. However, in my previous post entitled "Photos Lie" others share what they use as a photo editing tool. For more information and opinions on editing tools, I encourage you to go back and review that post.
8 comments:
Very nice.
Great post. Whenever I see a post regarding real estate photography I always comment with this awesome tip. It's a little application (also available as a photoshop plugin) that corrects the barrel distortion and the "leaning" issue that you so aptly display in the Condo shot. It's called PTLens and it can be downloaded at http://www.epaperpress.com/ptlens. It used to be free but I noticed now $15. It's still worth every cent though. You can try it on 10 images to see how it works. If you use a wide angle lens (and you should for good real estate pics) this plug in will straighten out those curved lines. It automatically recognizes which camera and lens you use and allows you to adjust the output. My wife is a professional real estate photog and this tool is absolutely indispensable to her. I noticed they have also posted a bunch of photography tips and tricks on the site since I've been there, good stuff. Hope that helps everyone take better pics. Happy snapping and I hope Santa brings everyone that cool new digital camera they want. Cheers, MP - MLPodcast.Com
Craig- I LOVE what you did with these pics. It all makes so much sense- and the differences are spectacular!
Craig- These pictures are amazing- what a difference. You always have great ideas and examples. Thanks!
I think they were all great and will definately use...but...darn I always feel I have a "but" - The big sky one...I have to say, more ceiling gives the illusion of more room, spacious. Look again at the big sky and tell me which room looks bigger?
Excellent tips. I am just now realizing the immense value that professional real estate photography has to offer ... while I am still vetting the ones I am going to ultimately use, these tips will certainly come in handy.
As real estate quickly takes over the Internet, and homebuyers are provided accessibility to pictures like these and Virtual Tours, what becomes of the agents? Agents have long survived and thrived on the being the exclusive providers of houses for sale information. An industry report by Swanepoel (www.ReTrends.com) says that the Internet has changed all that. So what does that mean for us homebuyers? Lower commissions maybe?
This is very helpful! One of my favorite things, a guilty pleasure, is to look at the home photos on the listings and critique them.
In relation to time-stamped photos. I've been seeing a new and disturbing trend regarding those. Some agents have been taking new photos of very old listings and purposefully leaving the date statmps on the photos, to give buyers the idea that they've accidentally left the date on, thereby freshening the listing. These are well-seasoned pros who have never date stamped a photo before and they're starting to show up all over.
Agents should be advised that buyers are not easily duped. They do understand the sequential nature of MLS numbers, and even if the agent successfully gets a new number, the DOM shows up in the records with an easy search.
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