Category: Real Estate Photo Editing

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.

When it comes to photos for listings and other marketing collaterals, it is always best to invest in a professional photographer who can take high-quality images. If you have some time constraints or are cutting back on some cost, then your trusty smartphone can do the job. Many of the latest smartphones already take good images so this often times does the trick. The secret in making your images at par with the rest of the market is in post-production.

 

Tips to Take Better Real Estate Listing Photos with Your Cell Phone
Brad Zimmerman | Website
How To Shoot AMAZING Real Estate Photos On Your PhoneThere are a lot of different photo editing applications available on your smartphone mostly due to the popularity of smartphone photography.

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However, there are applications that can suit your needs in real estate.

VSCO [Android App & iTunes – Apple]

The app is developed by Visual Supply Company, hence the name. This is a highly known application for editing and adjusting images. It is packed with good filters and layers that you can use in editing your photos. There are also premium filters available for purchase. Instead of going the filter route, you can also opt to edit your photos manually by adjusting the exposure, contrast, saturation, lightness, and others. This allows you to have total control on how the image will look like post-editing. VSCO is a complete editing application that will suit everyone from newbies to even skilled photographers.

Snapseed [Android App &  iTunes – Apple]

This free application is from Nik Software, a subsidiary of Google. Snapseed was originally only available on desktop and has the capacity of a professional editing software. It is a great tool if you are new to photography. This has the basic features for photo editing, like crop, white balance, select, rotate, and others. Snapseed also has a variety of filters and selective adjusting tools. This is a powerful application that can be used for real estate photos so you can tweak them before posting.

Afterlight [Android App & iTunes – Apple]

This application is perfect for editing photos for social media use. It has its famous “Fusion” filter that lets you create your own filters, which you can reuse in the future. This is great if you have a preferred look in your images and you can just use a single filter for all the other photos that you have for your listing. This saves you time and cuts off the work you need to do.

Diptic [Android App & iTunes – Apple]

If you are also active on social media, chances are you’ve made a few collages of your real estate photos for posting. Use Diptic to turn photos and videos into collages. It comes with 179 filters, layouts, and other editing options. It is effective for telling a story through your photos. You can craft an effective story to tell to your potential buyers by being creative with its layouts. You can import photos from Facebook, your camera, and even from Flickr. Unfortunately, this app is not free but it is one of the most feature-packed apps available.

Pixelmator [Webites & iTunes – Apple]

It is another desktop software that released a mobile app version. Pixelmator is a full-featured application that allows you to edit and create images even when you’re on the go. It comes with the basic editing tools, such as magnetic selection and quick selection. The app also lets you adjust your colors, repair photos, and even add effects. You can take full control of how you want your photo to look like. This app is priced at $2.99 but has a super easy user interface that makes it a staple app for real estate photo editing.

Lightroom [Android App & iTunes – Apple]

This is a trusty software that many photographers use in editing and correcting photos. Although originally it was only available on a laptop or desktop, Adobe has made Lightroom available for the smartphone. With it, you can edit craft professional-looking images. You can adjust the colors and correct the white balance. You can also experiment with layers and edits so you can adjust it as you feel like it.It is available on both iOs and Android for free. However, you can purchase the subscription plan for Adobe Creative Cloud Photography if you want to sync your photos and access your photos anywhere.

You have won the business, planned the project and taken some great raw images. The truth is, the most important step is still to come. They say that pictures paint a thousand words. So, it’s more important than ever to make sure that you have great looking photos that will make the property look good and also entice potential buyers to visit the property.

The quality of the post-production process that you use is an important factor to make your business successful. Many buyers rely on the photos they see online to decide whether a property is for them or not. Having amazing photos is essential to closing a sale. The issues faced most often creating great real estate photos have to do with proper exposures,  correct lighting, and pleasing colors in finished image. These little nuisances can be edited by professional photo editing companies that specialize in real estate photos.

If you are still pondering, here are the reasons why you should outsource your photo editing:

1. Access to experts. Professional real estate photo editing companies have a team of experts who are skilled in photo editing. They use the latest equipment and technology in their work so they are able to deliver the results that you want. Having an expert team ensures that all the problems in the photo are addressed. They understand what you need in order to make the photos more appealing. With their experience and expertise, you will be able to deliver quality photos that work for real estate and excite your clients.

2. Saves you time. Instead of spending your time worrying about how to edit and make your photos look good, outsourcing this work saves you time. If you have a huge volume of photos and work that needs to get done in a short period of time, outsourcing is the best option to go for. This will let you focus on money making activities. Spend more time meeting with potential clients and open up your schedule to accept more projects.

3. Professional images. Professional editing companies have the experienced professionals and the latest technology and software under them. They utilize the best in the industry to help you get the photo that you want. Their business focuses on producing the quality of images that you need.

4. Saves you money. As a business, it is important to keep your costs down in order to have more profit. Outsourcing will you save money versus of hiring a full-time expert photo editor in-house. Photo editing services done by professional companies are competitively priced and are usually more cost-effective compared to hiring one yourself. This allows you to increase your profits while keeping expenditures down.

5. Helps you get ahead of the competition. Outsourcing you post-production helps you deliver quality photos at a reasonable price.  Aside from that, having professional and high-quality images will make your projects stand out from the rest. Your ability to focus and dedicate more time to each project and on taking great images will give you a distinct advantage over your competitors who are spending countless hours in post-production.

6. Sell your properties. Just having a good photo makes a huge difference in selling a property. Photos often make or break the sale. Once they have your amazing photos, your clients will be confident. When the projects you work on sell faster your clients will come back for repeat business and give you referrals.

Having photos professionally edited does make a difference in the world of real estate. When outsourcing this service, it is important that you shop around and find the best one that suits your business. Look for a trusted professional real estate photo editing company that provides you with the quality work that you need.