The Fundamentals of Real Estate Photo Editing

 

If you’re still a newbie in real estate photography, but you strive to become much more and unlock your true potential, know that this takes a lot of patience.

Luckily, it’s a bit easier to do if you know a few useful real estate photo editing tips and tricks that will get you through the fundamentals. Once you go over the basics, it will be a lot easier to become a successful real estate photographer and conquer your competition.

Timing is everything

Timing is an essential component of good photography, and it’s especially important for you as a real estate photographer. Always try to do your photoshoot during the daytime, as natural light gives the best results. Saturated, bright, and natural light is necessary to get the best photos.

Know the property

If you’re taking photos of a house, make sure you take a few photos of each room, the facade, and the backyard. Carefully and attentively examine these photos to identify features that you can focus on when you decide to take professional pictures. This will help you see even the imperceptible details that add more value to your shots.

Choose the right equipment

Many things matter in photography, but it all comes down to the quality of your equipment. A full-frame camera is perfect for real estate photography, as it gets a lot of light.

Go with wide-angle lenses

If you’re aiming to become a professional real estate photographer, get wide-angle lenses. You’ll need to move around the object a lot to cover as much space as you can, and wide-angle lenses can help you with that. These lenses provide much better effects on visual enlargement and comfort.

Use flashes

Aside from the lenses, your residential toolkit should include external flashes. These flashes are strong enough to provide the most professional looking photos, as they significantly improve lighting that is necessary to highlight all the features and details.

Equipment Required for Real Estate Photography

Every professional real estate photographer keeps his arsenal well-equipped. Here is a list of the equipment you need if you want to make a living as a real estate photographer:

 

• High-quality camera – go with a full-frame camera with lenses that provide a 1:1 ratio, as well as features to set your ISO, aperture, and shutter speed manually, and an automatic exposure bracketing.
• Wide-angle lens – wide-angle lenses are essential for taking the most professional real estate photos. They provide the perspective that’s wide enough to take high-quality shots. These lenses also provide the imperceptible concave view. This allows you to show off every aspect of the space you’re shooting, and it gives people a feeling of actually being in the room.
• A tripod – a tripod gives you the steadiness you need to take the clearest photos that are crisp and sharp. It also allows you to take multiple shots that you can blend to get a better distribution of light.
• Photo editing tool – Lightroom, Enfuse, and Photoshop are the best choice when it comes to photo editing software. These tools allow you to remove blemishes, correct errors, and improve your digital images.

The pointers of real estate photo editing

Even if you have the best skills, correct settings, and highest quality equipment, there are still no guarantees that your real estate pictures will turn out perfect. Harsh shadows, saturated colors, unwanted clutter, lack of proper lighting, these and other imperfections won’t make your job any easier.

Since you need the highest quality images to beat your competition, you need to master photo editing. This is a skill that takes time to learn, just like anything else in photography, and it allows you to change settings, improve lighting, remove objects, enhance colors, and pretty much do everything in your power to make your photos look impeccable.

With that in mind, here are the most important steps in real estate photo editing.

1. Color correction

There are factors like camera settings, window tint, outside weather conditions, interior lighting, and so on that affect the color of the real estate property you’re shooting. You can correct the color up to some degree, but it’s important not to change the colors too much and make them stand out from the colors of the actual property.

2. Image enhancement

Even the best of the best fail to capture a perfect image every time, but they can rely on image enhancement to improve it. This photo editing feature allows you to enhance your photos by adjusting white balance, sharpness, contrast, brightness, and every other aspect until you make your image feel and look perfect.

3. Cropping

Cropping is extremely useful when you need to change the aspect ratio or improve framing. It can also help shift the focus from the surrounding area on the subject if need be. Be careful not to crop out any permanent objects or fixtures.

4. Sky replacement

If you’re not satisfied with dreary skies, replace them with blue, sunny, and clear skies to refresh your images and give them a better feel.

5. Object removal

All objects that aren’t fixed, such as gardening equipment, electrical cords, garbage bins, cars, and so on can be easily removed during photo editing. This is useful, as you’re removing any distractions, allowing the buyers to focus on the real estate they’re buying.

The most common real estate photography mistakes

Every beginning is hard, and you will make mistakes. To expertly balance styling, angles, color, and lighting to display your real estate photography knowledge, avoid making these mistakes:

• Unnatural lighting – shaded and overly lit photos drive potential buyers away.
• Photoshoot – the property needs to be styled and clean before you start your photoshoot.

Info

• Post-production editing won’t make things picture-perfect – don’t rely on Photoshop to fix issues that should have been avoided in the first place.
• Focusing on minor details – most real estate photographers think minor details will make them different, but they won’t. Instead, such details can make your photos seem dull.

Conclusion

There are three main things that drive the real estate industry: timing, price, and location. Timing includes the deadline you have to deliver your images, and this is where good communication with the real estate agent comes into play. The faster you deliver, the better.

To capture the best photos imaginable and deliver them on time, you’ll need a well-established editing system in place. This system allows you to have a quick turnaround.

Of course, you can always turn to professionals if you don’t have the time to edit your real estate photos. Back Office Pro Team is filled with professionals that can share this load with you and help you provide your agent with the best real estate photos ever.