Category: Real Estate Photography

The post-processing for real estate photography takes a good amount of time for many photographers. This usually takes a huge amount of time as this is an important step in creating amazing images that will help clients in selling their property.

There are different techniques that photographers can use and do in order to retouch and make the properties look great in photos.

Here are some of the basic and most commonly used editing techniques for real estate photography:

1. Perform color correcting.

Color correction is probably one of the basic and essential steps in real estate photo editing. Color correction can be done on Lightroom and Photoshop. However, it’s easier and quicker to do it on Lightroom. With the eyedropper tool, just click on a neutral area to correct the colors of the entire image. Depending on the photo, you might need to adjust the saturation, hue, and tint in order to get a more realistic image.

2. Straighten the lines.

When shooting properties, you need to be extra careful with your lines. You need to make sure that these are straight and not bent in some way. Whether you’re shooting interior or exterior, you have to look at the lines and shoot them properly. However, you can always retouch them after a shoot. To align the lines in Photoshop, you can use the Free Transform. Make sure that you select the entire image and drag the corner of the image opposite to where the lines are leaning towards.

3. Even out the light.

When shooting interiors or exteriors, you might encounter problems with the shadows and uneven lighting. To combat this, use Lightroom to adjust shadows, highlight, whites, and blacks. Drag the Shadows bar to the right in order to open up the shadows a little bit. Make sure that it is a safe middle ground. If you have harsh highlights on the photo, you may want to drag your highlights bar to the left in order to bring down the hot spots. To adjust the whites and blacks, hold down the Alt key on your PC or the Option key on your Mac. Bring the whites or the blacks bar to the right until you see specs of white or black on the image.

4. Clean up the image with cloning.

Remove unwanted objects in your photo using the clone stamp tool in Photoshop. Click the clone stamp tool and choose the source area. Then, you can start cloning and painting over the object that you want to remove.

5. Adjust clarity.

On Lightroom, just push the clarity to the right in order to polish the photo. With adjusting the clarity, you might want to adjust the blacks as well in order to add depth and crisper look to the image.

6. HDR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 High dynamic range (HDR) is a technique that many real estate photographers use to create a greater dynamic range of luminosity. To create HDR images, make sure that you have shot your subject in different bracketed images. Then, all you have to do is merge the photos into one to show its highlights and shadows.

7. Lens correction.

This is a handy tool that you can use in Lightroom. It corrects the optical issues found in most lenses. To use this, just go to the Lens Correction module and click Enable Profile Corrections. Then, click on Remove Color Aberration.

8. Curves.

The Curves is a powerful tool in Photoshop. This can be used for color correcting and optimizing your colors. However, it can be an extensive tool that can be challenging to master. To use Curves, go to the Image menu, choose Adjustments and click on Curves. Click Auto in the dialog box. Drag the diagonal line at the center and pull it up to brighten the image or down to darken it. When you’re already happy with the outcome, click OK. You can freely play around with this tool and experiment in order to achieve the look that you want.

9. Using image processor.

The image processor allows you to resize your photos in batches. This is a time-saving tool, especially if you are working on hundreds of images that will have to be used in different mediums. To use the image processor tool, select File menu and click on Image Processor. Choose Folder in the dialog box and save in the same location. Choose JPEG as file type and click on Resize to fit and put in your desired dimensions. Make sure that you include the ICC profile and click Run.

10. Playing with hue and saturation.

Hue and Saturation is another helpful tool in Photoshop. This can be used for color correction and is also similar to Curves. However, Hue and Saturation can be used to enhance the greens on exterior and landscape photos. To use Hue and Saturation, go to Image menu, choose Adjustments, and click on Hue and Saturation. Choose Yellow from the dialog box. Increase the hue and decrease the saturation and lightness. Change the option from Yellow to Green and repeat the changes you’ve made to hue, saturation, and lightness. Then, click OK.

11. Do composites.

Composite is an ingenious technique that merges different photos to create a seamless image. This can be used in real estate when you’re blending together different images, such as stitching flash and ambient shots into a single photo. This is often done on instances wherein the subject is manually lit by the photographer using a handheld flash.

12. Batch edit, if possible.

If you’re working on similar edits on a number of photos, it’s best to batch edit them using Lightroom. This allows you to save time and do the minor edits all in one go. Just do the retouches and adjustments on one photo and sync these changes into the rest of the images.

13. Keep it natural.

The final yet most important photo editing technique when retouching real estate photos is to keep it natural. It can be too easy to go overboard when editing photos. However, you need to make sure that you create a more natural look in order to make the photos believable. The goal in real estate photography is to sell the property. Make sure that you err on the natural side every time you retouch your images.

 

The following famous architects changed the way we think about construction and gave us some the most breathtaking buildings to photograph.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Easily the famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright designed 1,114 works of various types which turned into 532 completed projects. Over 7 decades he was one of the most innovative, prolific designers ever and changed the way we live by changing the way we build.

 

 

 

 

 

Antoni Gaudí

Antoni Gaudí believed the essence and the meaning of architecture are found in the very patterns of nature and its laws. Gaudí himself once said: “originality consists of going back to the origins.” Gaudí tremendously impacted subsequent generations of modernists architects. His genius created a unique, personal and incomparable style that defies typical classification.

 

 

 

 

 

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Starting as an innovative architect in 1920’s Germany, Mies was the last director of the Bauhaus, a seminal school in modern architecture. After Nazism rose to power, due to it’s strong opposition to modernism, Bauhaus was closed. Mies emigrated to the United States and accepted the position to head the architectural school at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Mies sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created an influential twentieth-century architectural style of extreme clarity and simplicity. He made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces and strove toward an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of unobstructed free-flowing open space. He is often associated with his quotation of the aphorisms, “less is more” and “God is in the details”.

 

 

 

 

 

Philip Johnson

Johnson’ role as the founding director of Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Architect meant that he helped to shape architectural trends from 1935 onward. In 1979, Johnson was the first recipient of the Pritzker Prize. From his early modern structures to his later postmodern buildings, Johnson defined several architectural movements over the course of his decades-long career.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eero Saarinen

The modernist ideal of simplicity became a form of corporate conformity after the war, and it is against this backdrop that Eero Saarinen’s mid-century designs provided a fresh perspective. In contrast to the standardized box adopted by the International Style, Saarinen employed swooping curves that gave his architecture a sense of soaring transcendence which is evident in projects such as his 1947 design for St. Louis’s magisterial Gateway Arch.

When establishing yourself as a real estate photographer it is key that the work that you produce is professional and shows no signs of amateurism. Here we will cover a few of the common errors new photographers make, how they happen and how to avoid them.

1. Converging Verticals/Incorrect Horizontals

This is one of the most common issues with people just beginning to work in real estate photography, Converging verticals and misaligned horizontals are particularly problematic for real estate as the aim of good real estate photography is to give a realistic and pleasing view of the property. Humans like things straight and if things looked crooked, it throws our sub-conscious perception out of balance.

Converging Verticals describes the effect in images when two parallel lines in an image, such as the two sides of a house seem to get converge – as if they are leaning in towards one another at the top.

This effect is very apparent when while trying to take the exterior photos you angle your camera up in an attempt to fit the whole structure into the frame. It’s particularly noticeable when using a wide angle lens and while capturing a tall building.  This also happens when your camera is not fully level while taking our shot.

Incorrect Horizontals describes the effect in images when the horizontal lines in an image are on different planes. It is particularly noticeable in one point interior shots of the home.

The Fix:

There are 3 keys to dealing with these problems.

1. Try to move further back from the home that you’re photographing. This decreases the angle that image is taken from and the more parallel you are to the subject the better. This may require you to stand across the street from the home and you will probably get more of the foreground in your image.
2. The next key on site is to use a tripod that contains a tripod head with a bubble level to check each shot or you can alternately use your live view and line up the edges of the photo with edges of the wall and make sure verticals are straight by using shift and tilt modifications.
3. The final key comes in post-production. Since, in order to mitigate the converging lines effect, you probably have more of the foreground in the shot than you would prefer to make sure to crop the image accordingly

2. Open toilets

Although it seems obvious, this error comes up oftentimes with new real estate photographers. Leaving the toilet seat open invites the viewer to imagine what might be inside. That is never good.

The Fix:

Obviously, the fix here is to close the toilet seat before taking photos but this error speaks to a bigger overall issue with proper project preparation.

3. Weak Perspectives

In order to present the best work, all of your shot compositions should show a strong one point or two-point perspective. A one-point perspective is defined as a shot in which all orthogonal lines converge on a single vanishing point.

Most real estate photography is taken with a two-point perspective. Since there are more diagonal lines this is a more dynamic way of composing your shots. A two-point perspective is defined as a shot in which the orthogonal lines converge on two different vanishing points.

The Fix:

Two Point Perspective: Make sure to only capture two walls in your two point perspective compositions. It is always better to let the viewer imagine the third wall rather than have it impinge on the space in your shot. A proper two-point perspective makes the space feel larger, which is key in real estate photography.

 

One Point Perspective: Make sure to line up your vertical and horizontal lines in your one point perspective compositions. Everyone notices a picture frame that is not properly aligned on their wall so even the untrained eye will notice mistakes here and the photo will look hastily composed and unprofessional.

 

4. Hot Flash Spots

Hot flash spots like the ones shown below can distract from the important factors of the space and they are also just not aesthetically pleasing. This can happen a number of different ways but the most common cause of this problem is when you are using an on-camera flash and shooting that flash straightforward with no diffusion.

 

The Fix:

Try using umbrellas to diffuse the light or bouncing your flash off the ceiling or other surfaces for soft fall off light.

 

5.  Bad Tone Mapped HDR

HDR photography can sometimes look overprocessed. While it can be used as a tool for artistic expression it is not something you aim for in real estate photography.This common error occurs because users tend to use invalid settings for tone mapping in post-production. This is common with batch processing of raw images. This can also occur when taking only ambient exposures with no flash or without proper lighting. This can be especially problematic for real estate photography since prospective buyers may be disappointed when they actually tour the home and it doesn’t meet their expectations based on the images they saw online.

 

The Fix:

In order to avoid this issue, you should make sure to light the space properly. Try mixing your own lighting with ambient light in your shots. In post-production manually edit the image for a quality color balance.

 

6. Improper White Balancing

White balancing is the process of removing unrealistic color casts so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. A telltale sign of real estate photography amateurism is finished photos that don’t accurately represent the true color of the space. Even if the real estate agent doesn’t notice this you can be sure that their client the homeowner will. This typically occurs because there are too many different light sources with different temperatures and there was no flash used to overpower these ambient light sources or the photographer did not properly adjust the white balance in post-production.

 

The Fix:

Use of a proper flash to overpower multiple light sources and colors and use of post-production software to balance the raw image properly.

 

7. Lens Distortion

The key to real estate photography is to “keep it real” The use of a “Fish Eye” lens or cheap lenses along with the subject of the photograph being too close to the lens or a lack of proper post-production adjustment techniques can cause your completed work to suffer from lens distortion.

The Fix:

Invest in higher quality lenses as they will pay you back with better end results and happy clients who refer you more business. Make sure the subject is at a  proper distance from the subject matter. You also can correct the lens distortion in camera raw or Lightroom by profiling the lens and camera combination.

 

8. Hard shadows

Hard shadows make rooms look dark which is a bad result since most buyers prefer homes with a lot of light.  These shadows can also make walls and ceiling appear stained and dirty.The most common cause of this is something we have covered before; using on-camera flash and shooting that flash straightforward with no diffusion

The Fix:

Try using umbrellas to diffuse the light or bouncing your flash off the ceiling or other surfaces for soft fall off light. You can also manually remove the hard shadows in post-production.

 

9. Photographer or Camera Reflections

The Fix:

This issue occurs due to improper positioning when taking your shot. If it is impossible to get the right shot without exposing the gear or yourself to a reflective surface you can fix this in post-production with a software such as Adobe Photoshop by using the clone tool.

10. Lack of decluttering the shot

It is important that a real estate listing appear orderly and organized in order to be pleasing to the eye. Although the example below is extreme, it is important to preserve clean lines for your image.

 

The Fix:

Items such as soap on the sink or remotes on the coffee table take away from the shot. Also be aware and remove any personal photos, garbage cans, security system signs, toys or other uneccessary personal items from the frame.

 

 

For more in-depth training on real estate photography follow the links below:

http://54.201.150.30/wrap-up-a-real-estate-photography-shoot/

http://54.201.150.30/photograph-backyards-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/photograph-living-rooms-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/photograph-kitchens-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/photograph-bathrooms-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/porches-views-and-panoramas-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/basics-of-hdr-and-flash-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/how-to-photograph-front-exteriors-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/photograph-dining-rooms-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/photograph-bedrooms-for-real-estate/

http://54.201.150.30/camera-settings-for-real-estate-photography/

http://54.201.150.30/basics-of-real-estate-photography/

Real Estate is a lucrative industry. The total value of all the housing stock in the United States has never been worth more than it is right now, according to a new report from Zillow. The report says the total value of U.S. housing stock grew to a total of $29.6 trillion in 2016, marking an all-time high. Listing Agents are willing to invest in effective marketing and in this highly competitive market, they are always looking for the best photos and media to sell their properties fast.

Photography services are in high demand when it comes to marketing real estate properties.

There is always a need for a good photographer. No matter what the economy looks like houses are always for sale. This makes real estate photography an attractive pursuit for many.

1. Master the basics of photography. Before you venture into any type of photography, mastering the basics is a must. Although there are exciting technological advancements that are very prevalent in the field, it pays to take the time to get to know your equipment and basic the techniques in photography first. Take workshop classes that focus on fundamentals and just keep on shooting.

2. Choose the right tools. A craftsman is only as good as his tools. Invest in the right gear so that you deliver quality work. Invest in a camera with good ISO performance and make sure that it is a full-frame DSLR model. A wide-angle lens is also a must for shooting real estate. This is a staple for shooting large bedrooms, interiors, and even exteriors of homes. A tilt-shift lens can help to minimize distortion when dealing with a wide angle lens without sacrificing composition. A sturdy tripod with an adjustable head will come in handy and save you a lot of time when moving your setup about the property. This will drastically improve your consistency as far as composition is concerned, which is necessary for HDR processing, which has become very prevalent in the real estate industry. A powerful flash unit and a remote shutter are accessories that will make a difference in your output.

3. Network and shoot. If you’re just starting out in real estate photography, it pays to know people who are currently working within the industry. Connect and network with real estate agents or brokers and consider offering your services for free. This is something that you should strongly consider if you’re still building your portfolio. You can use this as an opportunity elicit referrals. You, at a minimum, will build a strong portfolio so you can land paid projects in the future.

4. Find out the industry rates. Research what other real estate photographers are charging and charge appropriately. If you’re still new, you can compete with veteran photographers by offering more bang for the buck.

5. Plan ahead. Once you’re booked for a shoot, make sure to carefully plan every detail. Talk to your clients openly and discuss their wants and expectations. Create a shot list based on your client’s desires and identify the setup and lighting you will need in order to achieve the desired result. Arrive a few minutes early in order to survey the location. It is also key to find the best hours to shoot based on the Sun’s location relative to the property, especially for exterior photos.

6. Learn, learn, learn. Learning never stops, no matter what field you’re in. You need to always strive to be better and work hard to learn more techniques to better your craft. Learn more editing techniques and figure out how to streamline your processes. The style and trends in photography change rapidly.

Real estate photography is a good field to start in if you’re looking into photography as a career. It can be a profitable field, especially since online marketing for real estate is growing and people are more and more willing to spend money on great photos. However, there are challenges that come with shooting real estate.We will focus on some tips to that will make a huge difference in the product that you produce for your clients.

If you want to dabble in real estate photography, keep in mind these tips to help you become a success in this field:

• Ready your gear. When you win the business and you’re booked for a shoot, take the time make sure that you have everything that you need. Never wait until the last minute to pack as you might forget the essentials items. A project checklist is highly recommended. Remember to bring extra memory cards and extra batteries since you will be shooting on location. An extra camera body is preferable if your budget allows for it. Double check your gear and ensure that you’ve got most, if not all, of the possible scenarios covered.

• Always use a steady tripod. You can save you and your real estate agent a lot of time and make your clients happy just by having a steady tripod with an adjustable head.  Having to reset your shots can be time-consuming on site and in post-production. Check you tripos to make sure there isn’t an excessive amount of play that can alter the composition of your shots. This will be handy, especially if you will be using HDR for some of your post-production.

• Go wide. A wide-angle zoom lens is indispensable for real estate photography. Make sure you have a good supply of versatile lenses that can do the job for real estate photo shoots.

• Pack more than one flash. When shooting real estate, you need to be ready for whatever the setup is. For shooting smaller rooms, you can get away with just one flash. For large rooms, however, you will need to have extra flash or lights to fill in the shadows. You can also use a reflector or an LED panel for this purpose. The goal is to augment the lighting in the space, especially for darker rooms.

• Shoot from waist level. When you’re shooting an interior space and from a standing position, you will look down on most of the interior scenes. For interiors, you have to shoot from waist level in order to emphasize the décor and the furniture in the space. A trusty tripod will also come in handy for a steady perspective.

• Compose properly. Shooting interior is quite different when you have a model to work with. Since real estate photography usually features decors or space. It is important that you frame and compose your shot accordingly. Don’t be afraid to move stuff around and remove elements that are distracting.

• Opt for the right aperture. Shoot with the correct aperture in order to keep everything in focus. Although stopping down smaller than a camera’s maximum aperture size is great if your goal is to get bokeh, this is not ideal for most real estate shots. It is important to go for larger f-numbers, around f/8 or higher to keep more of the room in focus.

• Create your own editing presets. There will be projects where you’ll be pressed for time. Having your own presets for editing will save you time and let you create your own style of editing. A process in place will allow you to shorten editing time so you can send your outputs right away.

• Quick turnaround. The real estate industry is usually fast-paced. Along with having your own editing presets, make sure that you deliver your images on time if not earlier. The faster you can deliver, the better. This ensures that you get good reviews from the harried real estate agents tath will undoubtedly comprise your client list.

---

Source of inspiration (random order):

• A Beginner’s Guide to Aperture and Depth of Field – link
• 13 Real Estate Photography Tips and Mistake – link
• Real Estate Photography – a Guide to Getting Started – link
• Real Estate Photography – 25 Tips From The Pros – link
• 9 Awful Real Estate Listing Photos—And How To Avoid Taking Them – link
• 10 Tips for Consistently Great Real Estate Photography – link