Category: Real Estate Photo Editing

There are reasons why marketing of real estate properties and promoting the business itself is easier than ever. Agents and brokers are already opting to use professionally made photos and studio quality images. They also offer highly designed slideshows to sell properties.

Almost everything we think doing can be completed at the tip of the fingers. Image editing is one of the most common tasks to be done when it comes to enhancement of videos and animations. Making real estate photos is not an exemption. Many skilled photo editors can create a beautifully designed real estate property images in a very fantastic but easy way.

Proper knowledge on image editing that basically shows a clear and concise picture design capable of attracting buyers will be a big help in reaching your realty targets. It can be guaranteed that profits can grow exponentially when photos are exceptionally made. These techniques are done to properly advertise properties for sale. Buyers don’t settle for something that will not satisfy their tastes. Therefore, creating quality real estate photos is a plus factor that will suit their realty needs.

Agents produce quality photos and share them with the world. But it cannot be done without the help of real estate image editors. Professional image editors can be found everywhere. They can redesign and edit your photos within just a few minutes using powerful software. You can immediately share these images through social media, through your own website, or through property listings.

How to Maximize the Benefits of Image Editors through Outsourcing

Without second thought, the photos of different properties you present to buyers is vital in selling those properties. It is like a magnet which ultimately attracts buyers. Once an image is presented in a striking fashion, it already initiates explanations and detailing. This is the importance of having an editor by your side. An appealing look can be generated in no time. All you have to do is outsource your image editor and that’s all.

Outsourcing photo editing works for marketing and e-commerce means that images are sent to image editors through online for external retouching works and services. These people are hired to edit images and return them professionally made. Outsourcing service will do whatever you want to be done with the images and they will do it consistently to match your taste.

Image editing can cover different enhancement works. Editing works include background removal, straightening vertical and horizontal lines, setting acceptable margins, cropping, doing the correct aspect ratio congruent to the image’s height and width, color enhancement, and many more. These retouching activities can be done by many reputable companies, not to mention those individual freelancers.

• Outsourcing of Image Editors is Cost Effective
There are many excellent talents that can be hired that exchanges money for quality. One may inquire to lots of outsourcing sites about those professional freelancers that can deliver quality editing at cheaper rates. It is advisable to select real estate editors at a minimum rate.

• Quality Work Delivery
One of the benefits one can get from outsourcing photo editing services is the delivery of quality work. Reputation of the worker is what lies here. This goes to show that your preferred real estate image editor will deliver the product with the highest quality possible. Every freelancer needs to develop his or her reputation to gather more clients.

• Swift Services
Aside from delivering quality services, one may opt to outsource editing services because of better and faster services. Every outsourced editor must finish every project on the day the deadline set by the client. Submitting quality projects past the deadline is the same as submitting substandard product on time.

• Editors own the Latest Technologies
Real estate image editors can easily do tasks as easy as it looks. They can also deliver high quality products on or before the deadline. This is for the reason that side from the capability and skills that they own they have the access of using cutting-edge technology to assist them. They can effortlessly add artistic quality to transform an ordinary image into a stunning one.

• Competitive Advantage
Real estate business is already an oversaturated market. It contains an abundance of competitors waiting to avail for the right opportunity. But outsourcing your image editing works can clearly give you a competitive advantage. Because of the minimum cost you pay through outsourcing, this can help you market the business also at cheap rates.

High Dynamic Range Photography or commonly called HDR in the world of photography is a procedure in which a photographer can replicate or even replace what a standard photography can offer. This technique makes use of illumination as the main concept of photography which creates different exposures. These exposures are blended together to develop a better shot than what the original photo shows.

HDR is also used in real estate photography. There are moments when the photos taken are over-exposed which means some parts are brightly taken while there are dark parts somewhere. Many photographers make proper use of sunlight to avoid using lighting equipment. But in reality, sunlight exposure has its limitations. Time is of great importance when using sunlight as exposure source.

In photography, sunlight is usually good when you are shooting outdoors. It would be very hard taking photos indoors. A good HDR photography must always be accompanied by different equipment common to photographers. He needs to have a remote trigger to minimize movement, a tripod to stabilize the shots taken, a flash for indoor shoots and a trusted software like Photoshop CC for easier real estate photo editing.

Simple HDR Editing Guide

According to this post, there are countless techniques that photographers can utilize in order to make editing touches. This is for the purpose of making the photos look better. It is always time-consuming to edit real estate photography and this huge amount of time you devote in editing is the most important time in the post-processing of the photos.

According to appolicious, High Dynamic Range is the difference between the brightest and the darkest parts of photo. HDR Exposures Calculator on the other hand is an application where it automatically does the calculations to optimize the settings of the camera. This is a perfect tool to simplify the HDR feature of photography.

Below are the HDR steps in editing real estate photos.

• Turn off the flash of the camera, set to Aperture priority mode and switch the camera to metering mode. Metering is used to calculate the brightness of the real estate interiors and exteriors. This is responsible in maximizing the exposure of the shot taken by shutter speed adjustment.

• By positioning the focal point over the brightest part of the scene to avoid sunlight reflection. This is the time that you can open the HDR Exposure Calculator and make sure of the shutter speeds is properly entered. By automating the HDR Exposure Calculator, you can optimize HDR automatically. Since photography is both technical and a confusing context of artistry, HDR is essential to maximize the potential of the technical aspect of editing.

• After switching the camera to Manual mode and setting the Shutter Speed for the bracketed set, you have the option to use the AEB. HDR Interior Tutorial, you can see the Exposure Bracketing Setup page. You can even consult the manual of the equipment you are using.

• Choose the Continuous Shooting and press the shutter button to get the first few sets of the bracketed photos. Make use of the bracketed sets by the HDR Exposure Calculator.

• Make it a point to merge these photos once that the darkest part of the interior and brightest parts are determined using Photomatix Pro. You have the choice to open this app and click Browse and Load to choose the photos you wanted to merge. Then finally choose Merge Options.

• Align the source image and Reduce noise on the Merge to HDR Options dialog. You can find the Preset thumbnails panel and select Architecture on top of the thumbnails. Select the preset thumbnails on the Preview Image. With the sliders on the left, you can click Next: Finish if you are pleased with the effects applied on the merged photos.

Photo editing can recreate ordinary pictures to look extra amazing. Enjoining your family on a trip to a splendid vacation, attending parties with your friends or possessing great memories of special occasions, taking pictures from these events can eventually make the event more extraordinary.

In these times of digitization and information age, almost everything we think of can be completed at the tip of the fingers. Picture editing is one of the most common tasks to be done when it comes to enhancement of pictures. Old images, photos and videos are the ones which are preferred to be edited. Image restoration of these types of pictures 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. Images are edited by making the color more vibrant and to make the photos look more entertaining to stare at. These modified images may turn out to be used for listing services for other websites.

Some of the things that can be achieved when editing photos include the changing and enhancing the colors. Unwanted background can also be removed by means of cropping. Photo enhancing also includes adjustment of contrast, brightness and sharpness. What is more remarkable is by making a black and white photo turn to a colored photograph.

Photoshop CC Overview

video credit Just Alex Halford

To make photo editing clearer and more detailed using Adobe Photoshop CC, it is important to have this application downloaded to your PC or Mac. Editing and previewing of Canvas should be done first in order for the blank page to show up.

Unlocking the background layer is done by the LOCK symbol. You need to double click this so that a new layer screen will pop out. To add more layers, simply click DUPLICATE LAYER or NEW LAYER. Take note that if you have three new layers, you need to work on a separate layer for circle, colors and always save your work.

There are other special features that are built-in in an Adobe Photoshop CC. The list includes changing color background or foreground by means of editing the stroke pixel, stylizing the gradient background, filtering and more.

Since it is assumed a real estate photos are the ones needed to be edited, it is automatic to identify the tool box on the left part of the screen and familiarize all the feature given in that box. Noticeable at the right side of the screen is a setting for file storage. Make it sure that the storage must be spacious enough as Photoshop files are relatively big.

How to Use Adobe Photoshop CC Effectively

The most popular tool used in real estate photo editing is Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (CC). This is considered by many as the most advanced digital imaging software. The very basic step to use this is to download Photoshop CC. Adding effects to real estate pictures can be limitless unless your retouching skills are exceptional. This is not to discourage beginners but it is a popular notion that whenever you have competitive background when it comes to technology, you certainly have the edge.

Below are the steps on how to make real estate photos enticing to viewers.

1. Resize photos via Image Processor

Using Image Processor to enhance real estate photos, you need to choose “Select Folder” and select JPEG for resizing. You need to choose “Include ICC Profile” afterwards then click “Run”. Image Processor can basically resize a number of photos that will save you lots of time. This is a significant tool of Photoshop CC.

2. Use “Curves”

More often than not, picture editing largely involves correction of colors. With the use of Photoshop CC’s powerful tool called Curves, correcting the colors to what you desired can take some precious time to master because “Curves” is a complex feature of Photoshop CC.

Since the image is assumed open in Photoshop, go to “Image”, proceed to “Adjustments” and finally select “Curves”. You need to click “Auto” for you to be able to grab the diagonal line located at the center. This line is used to brighten or darken the image.

Another feature of the “Curves” is the presence of eyedropper. Eyedropper is used to select the black and white qualities of a photo. It can locate and optimize even the slightest color difference. This is a small process that a photo needs to undergo during enhancement.

3. Try “Hue and Saturation”

Mimicking the functions of “Curves”, “Hue and Saturation” is another feature that is very significant in the augmentation of color correction. Although this feature seems common to use, it will take to perfect this feature. “Hue and Saturation” has a variety of options. This feature is very relevant and important to real estate photos because the enhancement of greens and grass is a challenge for all users.

After getting your image opened, go to “Select”, followed by “Adjustments” and then click “Hue and Saturation”. You can easily adjust the hue to +15, and saturation/lightness to -5. Once these adjustments are made, simply click OK. This feature should make the tone of the photo more vibrant.

Interior photos are beautiful but also can be very challenging to shoot and edit. However, they make up the majority of the photos in a given property listing since buyers are interested in what’s inside a home.

Aside from putting the work in shooting the property, you also need to take the time to retouch and post-process your images before you hand them over to the clients. Amazing photos take time and effort, especially if you are shooting interior photos.

Using Lightroom

Adobe Lightroom is a staple tool for many photographers, no matter what their niche is. This software allows organizing, viewing, and editing a large number of images. This is great for non-destructive editing that still keeps the data of the original image.

Lightroom will allow you to batch edit and adjust the lighting and colors on your images. This is a great quick tool to go over images for some minor or basic editing.

Aligning your verticals

One of the most basic, yet most necessary editing that needs to be done on all interior photos is aligning the verticals. This can be easily done on Lightroom.

1. Use transform tool under the develop tab and make the proper adjustments.
2. Make sure that the columns and the edges of the furniture are straight and aligned properly.

Adjusting the brightness

One of the usual issues when shooting interiors is dark images. There is an easy fix to this problem.

1. Open up the shadows in your image a little bit by dragging the shadows to the right. Adjust accordingly and make sure that you don’t highlight all your photo. A middle ground would be perfect.
2. If needed, you might want to bring down your highlight a little bit. This does not work for all interior images unless you see some hot spots or there are a lot of bright lights in your photo.
3. Hold down the Alt key on your PC or the option key on your Mac, and bring the whites bar to the right until you see specs of white on your photo. This will define the white on your image.
4. To show the blacks on your image, hold down the Alt key on your PC or the option key on your Mac. Bring the blacks bar to the right until you see some specs of black color on your image.

Correcting the white balance

Changing the white balance on interior photos can be a matter of personal taste. Often, the white balance in interiors can be off since you have several light sources. One of the easiest ways to correct the white balance is to use the eyedropper tool.

1. Click on the eyedropper tool on your Lightroom and find a neutral color. You can check the RGB percentages on the tool as you go over some areas of the photo. It would be best to pick white or a gray area.
2. Once you click on the right color, this will automatically correct the white balance on your image.
3. Adjust the temperature and the tint as to your liking. Increase the temperature a bit if the photo is too blue and bring the tint to the right.
4. Add some contrast and bring in some exposure to the photo. Just adjust the contrast and exposure bar as you seem fit.

Adjusting for the grain

Check the darkest areas of your image, like the floor or corners. Often these are the parts that have the most grain. To retouch for the grains, follow these steps:

1. Adjust the luminance under the noise reduction module. Drag the bar to 40 or until the green grain gets neutralized.
2. Adjust the amount of sharpening to around 90 to make the photo very sharp.

Doing some lens correction

Lightroom’s lens correction tool is a very handy module that corrects the different optical issues on most lenses. It’s a quick and powerful tool that can be used on photos.

1. Just go to the lens correction module and check enable profile corrections. This automatically adjusts your photos and can bring about such big difference in the after photo.
2. Go to the color tab under lens correction and check remove color aberration.

Dodging and burning

Adding some interesting lights on the image is possible through Lightroom. Doing some dodging and burning on the photo will add some extra light. This can be great for images with lighting fixtures as this creates more realistic lighting.

1. Take your brush tool and make sure that you adjust the exposure, feather, flow, and density. Keep these high in order to create effective streaks of light.
2. Drag the brush on the areas where the light beams from the fixtures are naturally hitting, like the floor or ceiling. Drag over these areas to brighten the area. This technique adds some shine on the light in the room.
3. You can create a new brush with every beam that you add to make the light beams different every time.

As a real estate photographer, there is a lot that goes on a day of photo shoot. Finding the right time of the day, good lighting, and good angle are all necessary to create great photos. In addition to that, the right gears are also important. However, most of the work goes beyond the shoot. Real estate photography editing and retouching take a lot of time to enhance real estate photography.

Retouching skills are necessary in order to beautify and create amazing photos that make potential buyers interested in the property.

Here are some tips for using Photoshop to enhance real estate photography:

Using Hue and Saturation

Hue and Saturation is a great Photoshop tool to correct colors. It has different options that you can play around with. One of the typical color errors in real estate photography has to do with adjusting the greens. Capturing the vibrant exteriors, like the grass and trees can be challenging for newbies. To accentuate the greenery follow these steps:

1. Open your image in Photoshop and select Image menu. Choose Adjustments and click on Hue and Saturation.
2. Select Yellow from the drop-down menu on the dialog window.
3. You can adjust the Hue to +15, drag down the Saturation to -5, and the Lightness to -5.
4. Select Green from the drop-down menu and make the same adjustments to Hue, Saturation, and Lightness.
5. Click OK.

With this technique, the changes are usually subtle. However, you’ll notice more vibrancy in the grass and make it stand out more in the photo.

Adjusting the brightness

When shooting exteriors of properties, getting a balanced light can be a challenge especially if you’re working with direct sunlight. There will be dark and shaded areas and brighter areas. Editing the photo in Photoshop might be the best solution for this issue.

1. Go to the Image menu. Then, choose Adjustments and Click on Levels.
2. Drag the center bar to the right in order to tone down the super bright areas.
3. Click OK.

This will add more contrast to the image. This tones down a lot of the brightness in the photo.

Darkening the grass color

If you see the grass a bit brighter than it should be, do a little retouching.

1. Go to the Toolbar and right click on Burn tool.
2. Select the right size of your brush. Go for a larger brush if you’re working on a larger area and a smaller brush for some details. Drag over your brush to the grass. This darkens some of the grass and leaves.
3. Stop only when you get the contrast that you want.

Straightening the home or property

Having straight lines on your image is important to make the property look its best. Often when the camera is not angled correctly, you might have slanting lines. To correct this, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Rectangular Marquee tool from the Toolbar.
2. Select the entire image.
3. Click on the Edit menu and choose Transform.
4. Click the Skew option from the drop-down menu.
5. Drag the corner of the photo to the left, if the house or property is leaning to the right. You might also need to pull the right corner a bit to balance it out. Make sure that you do not pull too far as this goes way past realistic. Make sure that the edges are aligned and are straight.
6. Once you’re done click on the check button.

This technique also works in straightening up the edges for interior shots.

Evening out the lighting in the interior

For interior shots, there might be instances when either half of the photo is darker than the other half. Lighting up every corner of the interior can be a challenge.

1. Go to the Dodge tool and choose the right size of the brush to work with.
2. Drag the Dodge tool over the darker areas to add a bit of brightness.
3. Go to the Filter menu, choose Sharpen, and click on Unsharpen Mask.
4. Raise the amount in order to get clearer details. Click OK.