Photography has never been more important to venture real estate than it is these days. The markets are always in demand. Hence, this also creates demand to photography. For professional photographers, real estate business entails patience because there are lots of competitions in this business.

Although real estate properties, most especially houses, go on and off the market on a daily basis. And every agent must have the perfect strategy to get the attention of every homeowner. Because of this, real estate agents resort to photography. This task is a little tricky. This is why doing photography for real estate is one best option to make selling fast.

Being a real estate photographer entails lots of days for photo shoot not only as part of marketing purpose but also to perfecting the small details of some common mistakes. A photographer does not only consider the right time of day to create good shots. Other factors like correct lighting and good angle are also important in developing good quality real estate photos.

Since most buyers are already using online for their home search, uploading of stunning photos is a factor that will make your listing get noticed. There are times when photos were taken on a cloudy day and this kind of photo needs enhancement. In order to make listing photos stand out and gain that elusive attention.

Digitization has made everything possible at the tip of the fingers. Picture editing and enhancement is one of the most common tasks to be done when it comes to improvement of pictures. Image restoration of old photos and videos ultimately needs a particular set of skill. With proper knowledge on photo editing, it can be guaranteed that profits can grow exponentially when used in a correct and professional manner.

Photo editing is valuable to portraits for personal representation of pictures. It can be utilized for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and other eventful ceremonies. It is also suitable for commercial projects and businesses, like real estate, in particular. Photo editing can also help service and advertising firms for real estate companies and brokerage systems. It can increase the aesthetic beauty of properties by the enhancement and enrichment of images.

Mastering Real Estate Image Enhancement

Giving your clients a number of high-quality images will not only give you the edge. Captivating photos are what homebuyers are always looking for. They can simply attract buyers. This is the very reason why photo editing is an important inclusion in real estate photography. It allows you to improve colors, crop objects, upgrade lighting, change settings, adjust dimensions, and more. Below are some of the basic techniques to master real estate image enhancement.

• Correct the color

In shooting photos, always consider the weather conditions, interior and exterior lightings, window tints, camera model and camera settings, and many more. These factors clearly affect the color of the photo. Color correction is very essential to significantly change the color of the photos to new and invigorating ones.

• Cropping

Even professional photographers usually fail to shoot the best image they imagine. By means of cropping out the unnecessary parts of the image, it means improving the framing of the photo as well as changing its aspect ratio. Bear in mind though that it is not proper to include permanent fixtures to be cropped out. These may include electrical posts, piping systems, water tanks, etc.

• Check vertical alignment

It is also an essential element in basic image enhancement to address the vertical alignment of the property. Make it a point that the image undergoes vertical correction because this is one of the most common editing processes for real estate photos.

• Replace the sky above

Sky replacement is a common thing in real estate photo enhancement. When skies look dreary, it is without question that they must be replaced with clear, sunny skies. By doing this, it will completely change the outlook for the property.

• Removal of unnecessary things

Items like cars, bins, electrical equipment, gardening tools, and the like must be removed during the editing procedure. And in doing so, it will make the surrounding area clean. This will also pave the way for customers to see the whole property without any distractions.

In ensuring that the images of the property on catalogues and websites can attract potential customers, the use of real estate photo retouching tools are very important. Even if it is for a fact that real estate business mainly focuses on skills on marketing and selling, maximizing the use of the different techniques in enhancing real estate photos is another interesting strategy to increase sales.

There are customized services that can offer high quality real estate retouching jobs in order for your business to have the edge in the market. In utilizing the assistance of these services, it does not only aim to deliver high quality services to customers. Because these photos can capture the attention of buyers, it also helps increase sales.

Real estate retouching process are techniques using different software applications. Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom are two of the most common software applications used to enhance and recreate captivating photos for the business. These are two powerful applications for photo restoration, retouch, photo masking, and more.

To recreate photos means many things. Recreating photos can be the removal of undesired objects, color enhancement, tidying up the area, balancing of light sources, just to name a few. For a real estate photographer, he will only shoot the property the best possible way and leave all the retouching works to the editors.

Likewise, for real estate agents and brokers, edited real estate photos can attract more buyers because they will be presenting attractive property images. Buyers would like to see spacious areas. This is the reason why there was a removal of unwanted things during the editing process. In this way, it pushes up the selling process because the photos will be presented with those unwanted things eradicated.

Statistics would reveal that high quality photos of homes sell 32 percent faster. Furthermore, homes with more photos also sell faster. Eighty-nine percent of homebuyers who used the internet are likely to be looking for photos. These photos, according to study, are the most useful and powerful feature of most of real estate websites. Many sales agents believe that a single photo can sell a thousand homes because, ultimately, photos attract buyers.

It is always a good option for photographers and editors to make the photos attractive so that listings are always fresh. This can be a reason for them to avoid reshooting and make their business stay at the top of the game.

How to Take Crucial Shots to Sell Homes the Quickest Way

For a photographer, he has these innate tricks on how to make shots correctly. In reality, he has no control over what he wanted to include in his photos and what he does not want. There are things that he needed to highlight but he does not know how. This is where the tricky works of a real estate photo editor come in.

Below are some of the techniques on how to capture shots for your listing needs that will help sell homes the quickest way.

1. Make the curb appealing

This is the foremost consideration to gain an excellent impression. One of the most common ways to do this is by simply removing the vehicles in the driveway. The street leading to the house must always be clear of anything including trash bins and other unnecessary things that will cause buyers’ withdrawal from the transaction.

2. Create a room with a view

To ensure buyer’s interests, focus the attention in making the rooms with views. Make sure that the windows can capture the views outside. In addition to this, always create spaces of the exterior landscapes.

3. Shoot the biggest bathroom

This is the tone-setter of any house, a great hiding place, and perhaps the most important room of any house but is sometimes, taken for granted. When you want to shoot the biggest bathroom, take the shot right from the doorway. One way to make the bathroom big is using lots of white – from tiles to paint to any other elements inside your bathroom.

4. Showcase the master bedroom

When taking images of the master bedroom, pull up the blinds. For curtains, make sure that it is styled in a pleated way to show views from the outside. Also, ensure that covers are free from creases and folds, and pillows are in their proper places.

5. Make the ambience of the living and dining rooms perfect

Before taking shots at the dining area, ensure that the chairs and tables are spaced evenly to create a better atmosphere. The living room is another area that is a separate zone from the dining area. Accent type of lighting is a good alternative when shooting a living room. As for the furniture, it is important to straighten out sofas and must face away from the dining area.

6. Kitchen

Just like the dining area, the kitchen needs to be free from any unsightly objects. Ensure that chairs and stools are arranged properly.

7. Backyard and entertainment room

When shooting the pool or the patio, always position at the rear-view to obtain two different angles in a single frame. This technique is a common practice among real estate photographers.

The problem facing a real estate photographer is always the absence of time. Producing high-quality photos is the ultimate goal of every photographer. When quality is non-existent, color correction, and adjusting tones and shadows are done in clearly and full of expression. Photo-editors may use patch tools to clean up any imperfections, their burn and dodge tool to create beautiful eyes, hue and saturation for whitening several areas of the photo, and many more. Color correcting is also important to differentiate a dull photo from a photo that sells.

Because Adobe has an unrivaled reputation in terms of photo editing, its products are undoubtedly the most preferred options among professional photograph editors. Adobe Photoshop makes synchronization of photos between devices possible without transferring the photos manually from one device to another. Being a user-friendly software, Adobe offers the Lightroom CC and Photoshop to edit an create photo effects in an almost similar manner.

Photo editing is essential in the business. It is very hard to get the perfect shot of a property, an event, or even a simple occasion. These days, photo retouching is an integral part of digital photography. Retouching services is very essential to bring out the natural beauty of the photo.

The following are guidelines and tips from different YouTube links.

1. Milky Way Photography – Make your Photos Look Awesome in 5 Minutes

This tutorial is effective in turning dark and average into a colorful picture using the classic Photoshop CC. It teaches how to bring out the true colors of the stars by bringing down the temperature as well as the highlights, and bringing up the contrast and white.

YouTuber: YuriFineart

2. Master the Pen Tool in 8 Minutes (Photoshop)

This video will teach viewers how to use the pen tool and to help you cut out anything in Photoshop. The pen tool is said to be the most accurate way to create cutouts and paths are always editable. You can create simple points and curves from beginning to end and you can cover long distances using long curves.

YouTuber: PHLEARN

3. Learn the Tone Curve in 5 Minutes: Lightroom Tutorial

This video will teach you how to use the Tone Curve tool. It will show how functional and important the S-Curve is. Starting with the shadow, as the video suggests, is one of the most essential thing when starting editing using Lightroom.

YouTuber: Nu Two Times

4. How to Own Tone Curves to Edit and Color Grade Photos Like a Pro

This video will show you how to master editing photos using curves in Photoshop and Lightroom to move beyond simple contrast adjustments and create your own basic photography editing flair without using presets. It requires a knowledge of using RGB Curves.

YouTuber: Chelsea Nicole Photography

5. Cityscape Night Photography – From Raw File to Final Photo in 5 Minutes Lightroom Tutorial

This video gives you an idea on how to create cool and astounding city picture by bringing out the white while manipulating the shadow. One trick that will best create a cool view of skyscrapers is to lower the highlight control button. Depending on how you will look at the photos, it is still appropriate to find the best adjustment tool possible for the Cityscape look more attractive.

YouTuber: YuriFineart

6. I Wish I Knew this When I started Editing In Lightroom

This video is all about a series of tips and tricks using Lightroom. It teaches the viewer how to shoot panorama in Landscape Mode, how to use Perspective and Boundary Wrap Option, how to use White Balance, and many more. On the equipment that you will be using, it also talks about how to calibrate your camera to produce better colors.

YouTuber: Serge Ramelli Photography

7. How to Use the HSL/Color Panel in Lightroom

This video shows how to break down the Color Panel. It explains the three most important elements in the Color Panel, which is the HSL or the Color – Saturation – Luminance. An in-depth discussion about how the three mentioned elements create an impact to photos. It also mentions that HSL and Color Panel are both exact same thing. What differs is how they are used.

YouTuber: Lucy Martin

8. How to Use Transform Tool in Lightroom

This video tutorial show how to use the Transform Tool to shift the perspectives of the photos you are going to edit using Lightroom to get crisp and clean lines. Because lines are the main characters of Transform Tool, this is good for architects and draftsman, who are people specializing on hard lines to design buildings and skyscrapers.T he tutorial shows how to use the different clickable options and assortment of sliders under the Transform Tool.

YouTuber: Lucy Martin

It is familiar to everyone that a picture can paint a thousand words. In this way, it is imperative to create great photos to make the property look attractive. In the advancement of technology, everything can be made amazing and spectacular in the snap of a finger. This means that we technology can literally make unlimited and astounding photos that are enticing to buyers.

Potential buyers wanted a vibrant photograph to refer to whenever they want to own a new property. They wanted a clear, crisp and cool images by referring to high-quality photos of the property they are interested in buying. Real estate photographs and videos are vital parts in the marketing and sales viewpoint.

For these photos to be processed to its best quality, they needed to be improved. Enhancement of photos requires the services of the different photo-editing applications, tools, and techniques because this job is very critical in a real estate photography business. Furthermore, in the advent of the social media like Instagram, Tumblr and Flickr, photos and videos alike are greatly shared for business promotion.

Photo-editing jobs today are commonly outsourced. There are many advantages of outsourcing someone to professionally edit and process a real estate photo. There are perhaps thousands of real estate photo editing companies that we can see online and they have the best equipment and the most skilled people to do the job.

Reasons behind the Need of Professional Real Estate Photo Editors

The creation of high-quality, saleable, stunning, and professionally-made photos is the primary goal for a real estate photographer. Below are the reasons why photo-editing is in demand these days.

1. It saves you time

Hiring a professional real-estate photo-editing company saves you the much-needed time for your other works. Exhausting most of your time editing photos to make them look good is not that advisable for a photographer because there are experts in this field that have a faster turnaround time to edit photos.

Even if your photos would show that they only needed basic enhancement, tasks such as window masking, sky replacement, or object cropping not only double but triple your time doing these special tasks.

2. Process the way you want

One of the better reasons why there is always a need for professional photo editors is that they can enhance your photos the way you want. Photo editors are trained to specifically cater the needs of their clients. They have the capability to easily edit the photos and deliver them exactly the way you want. All they needed is thorough explanation and giving them the checklist of the parts of the photos you want to be edited.

3. Photo editors are experts in their own field

Since photo editors are experts in the use of photo-editing software, they know all the tricks and techniques behind making your photo look spectacular. These people are skilled in a way that they know the ins and out of the different editing software such as Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom. They are familiar of all the features and functionalities of these tools. The know-how of these photo editors will be their advantage to create an improved photo and deliver it in the most efficient way.

4. Creation of profit

With the help of the skilled and professional photo editors, your business can create more sales. Instead of spending much time in trying to improve your photos by your own, you can exert much of your time and effort in actual shooting real estate photos. The benefits of hiring an expert can expand your time closing out better deals and transactions. As photographer, you can also work on other business matters.

5. High-quality image

Because of the experience of professional and skilled photo editors, they can produce very high quality images because of the latest technology they possess. These people work all day long improving their skills in using different editing tools. The only thing their minds are set into is how to produce tons of quality images the best and quickest way possible.

6. Gets you ahead of the competition

Outsourcing your photo-editing experts from around the world will let you choose the best and highly-skilled person to do the job. In this way, you can have the edge that will help you get ahead of the over-saturated real estate photography business. While others are spending much in producing processed photos, it will be your advantage when you outsource editing jobs at a reasonable price. In this way, upon selecting the right person who will work for you for over a long period and minimize time looking for someone to entrust your photo-editing jobs, the distinct advantage of getting ahead of your competitors is enjoyed.

7. Photography Website

Digitization is the culprit why a website for real estate photography is important. This is not part of the gear you are bringing to the site. It is also not the equipment you are using during photo shoot but it is self-explanatory why one needs to have his own website. Having the right tools and equipment is essential it is also viable to have an online space in the Internet.

Having an attractive website is what entices clients to visit it. Make it a point that the template you are using for your website will offer a correct and complete package for every individual visiting your website.

Being a real estate photographer entails lots of days of photo shoot not only as part of marketing purpose but also to perfecting the small details of some common mistakes. A photographer does not only consider the right time of day to create good shots. Other factors like right lighting and good angle are also important in developing good quality real estate photos.

According to this post, the work of a photographer however is just a speck of the many tasks he does beyond the shoot. There are editing and retouching works that will take a lot of time to enhance real estate photography. These skills are essential to create magnificent photos for potential clients to become interested in the property you are offering.

Photoshop Retouching Guides for Neophytes

• Hue and Saturation

Photoshop has many different options that you can play around with. Hue and Saturation is a great tool to correct colors. Adjusting greens is a common color error in real estate photography. You need to capture the dynamics of the exteriors that can be challenging to newbies.

What you will do is choose Adjustment after selecting Image. Select Yellow afterwards from the drop down menu to adjust the Hue to +15 and Saturation to -5. You can also adjust the hue, saturation and lightness by selecting Green from the drop-down menu.

• Adjust the Brightness

Getting balanced light is important when shooting exteriors especially when shooting under a direct sunlight. To balance light, edit the photo in Photoshop is the best solution so far. Opening the Image menu, choose Adjustments then click Levels. By dragging the center bar to the right tones down the overexposed areas.

• Darken the Bright Grass Colors

Garden is always a part of the exteriors of real estate photography. Seeing grass a bit bright definitely needs retouching. Going to the Toolbar, you need to click the Burn tool. Select the right size of the brush and drag over the brush to the grass afterwards to darken the area.

• Adjust Curves

According to InMan, Curves is a powerful Photoshop tool that is used for a color correction. Just open Image and Adjustments followed by Curves. After seeing the dialog window, click Auto. To brighten the curves, pull up the diagonal line at the center. To darken, pull it down otherwise. Click OK afterwards. You may also opt to use the eyedropper to choose for the black and white tones of the photo. Any slight difference will be corrected.

• Straighten Property

A straight line is always important in making the property look great. This happens when the camera is not angled properly. That is why diagonal and slant lines are visible. From http://54.201.150.30/real-estate-photography-using-photoshop/,you need to click on the Rectangular Marquee from the Toolbar and select the entire image. Click the Edit and Transform. From there, click the Skew from the drop-down menu.

Drag the corner of the picture to the left if the property is leaning to the right. Make it a point that you need not to pull too far because this might be very unrealistic. Click the Check button after the edges are aligned and are all straight.

• Lighting up the Corner

Lighting up the corners of the interiors of any property is always a challenge. It is always needed to even out the lighting of the interior because there are always situations when part of the photo is darker that the other part.

To balance and even out lighting, go to Dodge tool. Select the right size of the brush to work with. To add brightness to the darker part, drag the Dodge tool over the darker area. You then need to go to Filter menu and select Sharpen and click on Unsharpen Mask. To get clearer and quality details, increase the amount then finally click OK.

The techniques in blending exposures using Photoshop’s Lightroom seem endless. These techniques will actually allow you to blend interior photos perfectly. They are also great in editing photos seen in any exposure blend.

With the proper use of Photoshop CC of Adobe, you can easily blend interior designs under the city lights. The primary concern in this modification task is to develop the skills in the familiarization of Adobe Photoshop with the use of Raya Pro.

Tips on How to Blend Exposures of Interior Photos

This article is more about preparing for exposure blending than the actual exposure blending itself.

One basic technique when the photo is a little bit dark and some areas are partly exposed. You can immediately change the character of the picture with some few simple steps using Photoshop. When comparing the exposures of three identical photos with different exposure blends.

They can be dark picture which covers the highlights, a normal picture with basic exposure, and a picture with brighter exposure that needs to bring back some of the shadows. One of the purposes of this tutorial article is to push the knowledge of any individual about exposure blending to the highest level.

To start the editing process, select all the images and hold down SHIFT. Notice that the Open Images at the lower right of the screen changes to Open Objects. You need to press Open Objects and use the Stack button in Raya Pro. With the use of the Stack button, all the images will appear over the spaces below the panel.

You can make adjustments and editing in your normal photo by retrieving some of the highlights included in your dark and bright photos. Especially for the photo to blend with the normal, it would be very hard at some point to do it.The main objective of this exposure blend is to avoid making the contrast look flat. To fix this problem, go to How to use Precision Masks and click AUTO BLEND DARK.

There are instances wherein we need to have a very contrasting photo and the only way to do this is by clicking the value of your desire. The greater the value of the AUTO BLEND DARK, the darker the picture becomes. The resulting photo will highlight the parts that are overexposed.

To compare the previous photo with the new one, press Select under Precision Masks and bring down the Capacity back. You can press the Thumbnail to make adjustment to the Exposure, Highlights and Contrast.

After the correct adjustment has been made, just press OK and you will see the natural blend of the picture. You will notice that the critical parts in the image before exposure blend are very well edited after modifications were done. Make it sure that you will zoom in to check the picture before and after modification.

2. Check the blend of contrast

By clicking the Thumbnail that you want to edit, you need to zoom in and check every small detail of the picture. Check the contrast masks if they match your taste. Adjust it to your liking by pressing either the exposure or the contrasting buttons.

There is also a better and quicker way to do contrasting masks without Raya Pro. You only need to select the thumbnail, press Image, Apply Image and Press OK afterwards.You need to do this few times to create a much contrasting masks.

Or if you want to, you can make the dark image visible once again. Choose the actual mask itself by pressing the Command and L in the micro-control and you just can create a more contrasting mask while the Level control pops out.

This is just a pretty easy task to do because you can actually invert the situation by pressing Image and selecting Apply image. This time around, you will be selecting the Invert, and press OK.This is done for the photos with brighter exposure. Once this is done, you will notice that you have created an inverted mask.If you are not happy and contented with the result, you need not to panic. There is the Adjustment button to press to and all you have to do is adjust the levels of exposure and highlights.

For more tutorials, you may check this out.

Good reads:

• 5 Basic Color Correction Techniques Using Photoshop CC
• Photoshop CC Quick Guide for Real Estate Photography: Blending Ambient and Flash
• Interior Design Photography Tips and Editing Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom