Author: Rachelle Moore

As a real estate business or a photographer, outsourcing can be your best friend. This is the reality in a highly competitive real estate industry where every minute is of the essence. You have to make the most of your time and do the most important tasks first. You have to put a monetary value on your time so you know if it’s worth spending hours on time-consuming tasks such as photo editing.

If you are considering outsourcing your real estate photos, there are certain steps that you need to follow in order to find a company that delivers your needs.

1. Identify your goals. First, you need to figure out what you want to accomplish with your photos. Are you going to use these for sales? Will these go in your portfolio? Are these for a broker? These questions will help you in assessing how your edited real estate photos should look. In addition to that, you need to know the output that your client needs.

2. Know the scope of work. Once you know your goals, you have to identify the work that needs to be done. You can be specific about what changes you want to be done or instead give more general direction on the feel and look of the images after the post-processing. This will allow you to relay to your photo editor the specifics of how you want the images to be and so they have a clear vision of what they need to work on.

3. Work with your budget. Find out how much you are able to spend on your photo editing. This can help in finding a company who can do the work while still keeping within your spending limits. It is best to figure out the usual rates for this type of work, especially if you have no idea how much it costs. Ask peers and get quotes from different professional photo editing companies. This helps you in setting the right budget without skimping on the quality.

4. Ask for their portfolio and a possible sample. Once you have a budget, ask for quotes and for the post-production company’s portfolio first. This is essential before you make your choice. This will help you in narrowing down your options so that you may find one that has the best output for the price that you’re able to afford. You also need to ask if they could do a sample retouching. Send them two or three of your images so you can see the quality of their work. Make sure that you specify the changes and the look that you want and at the right time.

5. Narrow down your choices for a photo editing company. Research and look for the best photo editing companies that specialize in real estate. You can also ask for recommendations from peers. However, keep your list to a minimum if possible in order to prevent choice fatigue. With the portfolios in hand, you will be able to decipher which companies can help you retouch your images in order to achieve your goals. Check their policies and their turnaround time. Next, make sure that you pick your top five companies.

6.Choose the best one for your needs. From your list, pick one that fits your budget and needs. Make sure that they provide you with quality work and fast turnaround time so you can meet client deadlines. Look into their policies and set a working timeline for your images. Go for a company with great support so you are able to communicate with them in case of any urgent requirements.

Being in the real estate industry is competitive. The industry itself is extremely competitive with brokers and homeowners trying to outdo each other. Making a sale is always of the essence. When you have tough competition, your focus should always be closing deals. This is especially true for real estate photographers. Managing your time is important. Aside from spending days on taking photos, you need to edit and create the right images for the client. When you have other things to worry about, you cannot afford to spend precious time on tasks that you can delegate. This is where professional real estate photo editors come in.

Outsourcing a part of your work to professionals will allow you to stay on top of your competitors, book clients faster, and produce output quicker.

If you are still on the fence, here are the reasons why you need to hire professional real estate photo editors for your business.

When you hire professional real estate photo editors to do the work for you, you save a lot of time. Instead of spending days editing tons of photos for a project, you are able to delegate it to professionals. Even if it’s just simple editing, the time you save is doubled or tripled. With this time, you can focus on the essential parts of your business or even on your personal errands. This can be an essential investment in achieving the necessary work-life balance. Doing so buys you time. In addition to that, delegating to professional editors also mean a quicker turnaround time for your output. Photos can be delivered the next day or in a few days without delay even while working on other projects. This could mean happier clients and you can move quickly to the next project.

2. You can focus on the business.

Assigning the editing task to professionals buys you extra time. With this, you can focus on the more important things and do what you’re good at. You don’t have to spend your precious time going over your photos, especially when professional editors can do that for you. Focus on your business instead and on booking more clients and projects. You don’t have to worry about dividing your time into various tasks. This lets you focus on the essential parts of the business, especially in networking and connecting with potential clients.

3. This lessens your stress.

The extra time that you get will help in lessening the stress that you get when editing photos. Often, you work on images for hours to an end and the output doesn’t impress the clients. Once you let the professionals do the work for you, you save yourself from stressing out if the images are okay or not. You don’t have to re-do the photos if the clients don’t like it. Your editors will do all the work for you. So, you spend your time on more relaxing activities or on other parts of your business.

4. Photos are enhanced the way you want.

You don’t have to worry if the team can deliver the results that you want. Before handing the photos, you can specify your editing preferences and create a check-list of how you want the images to look like and how the client wants the images. Your professional real estate photo editors can use these settings and apply these to future batches. This creates a signature look and feel for all of your images.

5. You can get fresh suggestions.

Having fresh eyes work on your images will drastically change your output for the better.  Through professional photo editors, you can receive an unbiased perspective of your work. They can provide you with suggestions for improving your photos. This also improves the quality of your output while improving the turnaround time and efficiency of the work. These professional editors are experts in their field so they can use these techniques to make your photos even better. There are times when you may not be aware of these techniques.

6. It helps you generate more sales.

With the amount of time that you save and the quality of output that your professional editors produce, you can be assured of the influx of projects that you will get. You can spend more time on shooting projects and in dealing with clients instead of facing the computer editing your images. You can close bigger and better deals with this combination. This also means more income for your business.

These are just six among the many reasons why you should consider getting professional real estate photo editors for your business. Outsourcing the editing task of your business is a much-needed investment, especially if you’re looking into expanding. This will not only help you to book more clients but will also improve the bottom-line of your business.

As a newbie real estate photographer, there are more tasks that come after booking your first project. Once you’ve wrapped up your shoot, the real job is just starting. Your goal is to deliver the images as the client wants them. These photos should represent the real estate property accurately and make it appealing to prospective buyers.

In order to achieve this, you need to do post-production editing to improve your images. This will make your photos clearer and have better colors and lighting, depending on the scene. Unlike shooting portraits or events, editing for real estate is a different thing.

The needed software

Having the necessary software is essential to editing your real estate images properly. As a newbie photographer, you need to be familiar with both Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. These two are the most useful and the most common editing software for all types of photography. Especially for real estate photography, these two are a must.
Aside from these, the Enfuse plugin on the Lightroom is also important for HDR photography. If you’re shooting a lot of interior for your projects, then knowing how to HRD will be indispensable.

The step-by-step process

In editing your real estate photos, follow these steps:

1. Before working on your images, you need to import all of your photos to you desktop and to your Lightroom catalog.

2. Once you have imported your photos, you can start working on them. If you have bracketed shots that you’ve taken for HDR, then it’s time to create a single stack for them. You might have three to seven photos on a stack depending on how many exposures you have taken.

3. Adjust the color temperature on each of your stack using the eye dropper tool. This ensures that each of your bracketed stack has the same color temperature.

4. Blend your bracketed photos through your Enfuse plugin. Highlight your stacks and trigger the Enfuse process. This lets Enfuse blend each stack individually.

5. After successfully blending the stacks, edit the photos in Lightroom. Adjust the exposure, highlights, shadows and other necessary elements of your photos.

6. If you have exterior photos of the property that needs more difficult editing processes, then you might need to use Photoshop. This is usually used for sky replacements or removing objects.

7. Then, you might want to use some presets and adjust the photos accordingly so they have a similar look and feel as the client would want.

8. Once you’ve finished all the necessary edits and you’re quite happy with the results, it’s time to export the photos and package them for delivery.

Some tips and tricks

Aside from the basic editing, there are other factors and tips that you have to keep in mind while going through your images. Here are some tips to remember:

If you are shooting interior with a wide lens, having a sort of line convergence usually cannot be avoided. So, you have to straighten out the lines through your Lightroom’s Lens Correction option under the manual section.

Remember to even out the light during post-production. Lighting is key for every type of photography most especially for real estate photography. This is probably the first thing that you have to check. The goal is to make the image and lighting look natural. To do so, push the exposure slowly so you get a feel if it’s too bright or not.

Cleaning up your images is a must before you hand in the final photos to the client. Do spot removal or cloning if necessary. The spot brush tool removes dust or spots that are in the photo. Clone allows you to remove any reflections or glares. Healing, on the other hand, corrects smaller spots but adds a softer blend to the spots.

High-quality images are needed by all types of business, most especially in the real estate industry. Photos are effective tools in selling, no matter what the product is. Whether you’re a realtor or a real estate photographer, ensuring that photos wow your potential clients is your number one priority.

This is why you need to invest in amazing photo editing. Aside from making sure that you get a professional photographer to take photos of the property, having a great team of photo editors will ensure that you have high-quality images. Photo retouching is serious and it can make or break your business.

Where to look for a trusted real estate photo editing company

There are already a lot of image editing solutions companies around the globe. There are a ton of options depending on the type of retouching that you need to be done. If you’re looking for a real estate photo editing company, use the following resources to hire one:

• Search online. Many photo editing companies are usually located in different countries. Although the headquarters and main offices are in the US, the services are outsourced to trained professionals abroad. Just search for real estate photo editing companies and the companies will pop up in your search. Look into their sites and check if they are credible enough to work with.

• Ask friends for recommendations. If you have friends who have recently worked with photo editing companies, you can ask them for recommendations. This is an easier way to get options from people that you trust. Make sure that they have positive feedback for these companies, as well.

If you have a few companies on your list, narrow down your choices to five or fewer companies. Make sure that you go for those that are professional and have been working in the industry. Having a few choices will ensure that you hire the best one.

Factors to consider in hiring a photo editing company

Once you’ve found a company, you have to scrutinize it in order to find a reliable one that produces high-quality images. It’s not enough to hire the first one that you happen to stumble upon.

Here are the factors that you need to consider before you hire a photo editing company to do the work for you.

• Experience. The company needs to have a good amount of experience in the real estate industry. Look into how many years they have been in business. Go for those that have been around for 10 years or more. This ensures that they have dealt with different images and properties. Those with a wide experience can provide you with professional editing and images.

• Technical knowledge and technological expertise. Verify if they use the newest technology and programs for the job. Usually, just having updated technical knowledge will improve the output of the team. Having the right software affects how efficient and effective the company is. They should be able to retouch the most challenging photos and produce the best images.

• Customer feedback. Make sure that you check the reviews left by their previous clients. This gives you the assurance that they always leave their customers feeling satisfied with the output and that they are professional with the work that they do. Check if they have negative feedback and unsatisfied customers. This is a red flag when it comes to outsourcing your retouching work.

• Portfolio. Ask for the company’s portfolio, especially for real estate images that they have worked on. Make sure that they can provide you with a recent portfolio of relevant images that work for your industry. Check if the quality of work that they do is at par with your brand. This will help you make your decision and check if you can get a consistent look in all your photos.

• Turnaround time. Different companies have a different turnaround time for the certain volume of photos. You need to specify the work you require and ask for their expected turnaround time. There will be times when the set time will increase depending if it’s peak season or not. It’s best to go for those who can be flexible and fast with their turnaround time as speed is essential to the business, especially when it comes to keeping up with the competition.

• Pricing. Some companies already specify their pricing depending on the services that they offer. There are those that charge an hourly rate while others go per image or per project. There will also be an additional charge for rush retouching. This is something that you have to tell the company, especially if you need the images right away.

• Support team. Having a local support team can make a great deal of difference if you’re encountering issues with the output. A communicative team will not leave any of your questions unanswered. You are able to discuss queries and openly discuss ideas.