Modern technology has enhanced the quality of digital filters to improve the appearance of plain photographs. Nowadays, you can easily edit images on your smartphone with creative preset app filters for various purposes like social media posting or marketing.
Most available filters are whimsical, imaginative, and romantic, so they’re not great for post-production of real estate images. If you’re fond of social media, you may use some filters to add spice or excitement to your selfies and video calls.
You need the best filters for real estate pictures; but initially, you have to know why filters are essential in the first place.
The importance of using filters
There are different natural elements affecting photographs that you can’t control, like sunlight brightness or UV rays. You may not have enough time to wait for a favorable temperature or setting, so filters can help you achieve good color, saturation, and temperature balance.
You should use filters that are as natural as possible if you want a suitable photo filter for selling house. After all, one of the primary reasons why you have to make excellent real estate photography involves bringing in sales, improving marketing efforts, and completing conversions.
Filter shapes
You may be ready to purchase your first filter but don’t know which is the best filter for home photos. Before going into the different filters for real estate photography, let’s address the filter shapes. Currently, circle and square are the two standard filter shapes available in the market.
Circular filters
A circular filter can be attached directly in front of your lens, so purchase one that fits the corresponding lens diameter; this information is available on your lens cap backside. If you want your filter to accommodate different camera diameters, you can purchase a step-down or step-up ring.
Square filters
Square filters can sometimes come in square or rectangular form and are part of an attachable contraption, typically in a bracket attached to a round ring that you can screw in front of your camera lens. A square or rectangle filter is stackable and easy to change, making it an excellent photo filter for selling houses. You need to plan if you want to purchase the bracket or filter system so that you don’t end up wasting money on it. Eventually, you’ll develop your style and technique using different filter combinations.
You may wonder what filter do real estate photographers use to create successful listing images. Here are some of the primary camera filters for beautiful real estate photos:
1. Ultraviolet (UV) Filters
The Ultraviolet (UV) filter is perhaps one of the essential filters newbie photographers use. Ultraviolet light has shorter wavelengths than visible light, and the Sun releases a full ultraviolet radiation spectrum defined as UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C. Even though it is almost unnoticeable to the human eye, it can cause blue tones in photographs. Before using a Photoshop filter for selling house, you must ensure that your photos don’t have unnecessary bluish tones that would ruin the composition and color balance.
Here are the pros and cons of UV filters:
- Reducing UV light exposure
- Protecting lens from scrapes and scratches
- Protecting lens from liquids, dust, sea salt, and other elements
- Slightly lowering image quality
- Not protecting the camera from internal damage
- Reducing the light passing into the camera
A UV filter is one of the essential real estate photography filters, especially for those operating under harsh sunlight, like outdoor real estate photographers.
2. Circular Polarizer (CPL) Filters or Polarizers
Photographers often use a circular polarizer filter (CPL) for landscape, outdoor, and street photography. The CPL is one of the best filters for real estate pictures, especially when shooting outdoor real estate property listing photos.
Here are the pros and cons of CPL filters:
- Reducing reflections
- Increasing saturation
- Enhancing cloud details
- Allowing limited light
- Not ideal for indoor shoots
A CPL filter is useful when shooting in high sunlight and not ideal when shooting images for virtual staging.
3. Neutral Density (ND) Filters of Varying Densities
Adobe Lightroom presets could improve any image, but the next item on the list is one of the most versatile and arguably the best filter for home photos. Photographers use a neutral density (ND) filter to create a shallower depth of field, create motion with a slow shutter speed, and reduce light over the whole picture. ND Filter comes in square and circle variants.
Here are the pros and cons of ND filters:
- Capturing a beautifully shallow field depth using a wider aperture
- Producing motion blur and long exposures for a more extended duration using a slower shutter speed
- Creating dramatic effects for lawn, foliage, sky, fog, and cloud scenes
There is more than one ND filter type with different densities for advanced photographers, so feel free to experiment and explore which suits your style best.
4. Graduated Color Filter
If you want that wow factor in one of your real estate listing photos, you can use the graduated color filter to help achieve the best real estate photographs. This filter lets you get creative with the skyscape and brings you the same effect as a twilight replacement edit. It allows you to enhance the color on one half of the photo and retain the normal lighting condition on the other.
When you ask what filter do real estate photographers use, the graduated color filter is not at the top of the list since it presents a more creative approach than the usual realistic property listing photos. It has a specific purpose, mainly to enhance outdoor views such as the sky or sea.
Conclusion
Filters improve real estate photographs, whether a photoshop filter for selling house or a camera filter, especially when you’re up against millions of real estate listing photos. Most of the ones mentioned in this list are filters ideal for outdoor property images.
If something is wrong with your raw shoots, you may consider getting filters on your digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. Phixer and most post-production professionals know what kind of filter works best for specific real estate listings.
