Cheat Sheet: Photo Editing Terms for Real Estate Agents

Professional photographers make a bunch of tweaks to your photos behind the scenes that have a huge impact. Here is a guide to talking the photography talk even if you can't walk the walk. Use the guide to communicate changes you may need or to criticize your colleague's inferior photos--up to you!

Perspective

While negotiating a deal, you probably find yourself forced to see situations from different perspectives. Who's right and who's wrong? Are door knobs real or personal property? I'm sure you know how to navigate out of that dumpster fire, but knowing what "photography perspective" means might not be so clear.

If your photos appears to be crooked, uphill or downhill, the perspective might be off. Professional photographers make sure that their images are perfectly square before delivering the final assets. If you used a pro photographer for your listing and you are seeing tilted houses, blame that last glass of pinot, not the photo.

Before: Tilted perspective

After: Square perspective

Exposure

Properly exposing a photograph is a careful balancing act—too far in either direction and you've lost details in the photo. Over exposed photos appear "blown out," washed out, or too light, while under-exposed photos are very dark.

Before: Under exposed

Before: Over exposed

After: Pureshot Photo Processing by PlanOmatic

White Balance

Cameras pick up colors from the lighting of the space, causing variances in white balance. A photo can have a warm or cold hue inherited from lighting conditions. If the temperature is warm, everything will appear to have a magenta cast. This often happens from overly artificial lighting or fluorescent lighting like in rooms without windows. Natural light can have an effect, too! Photos taken on clear blue sky days can sometimes inherit a cool temperature which tints the image blue. In post processing, professionals will use a standard white to adjust temperature to show true whites.

Before: Warm white balance

Before: Cool white balance

After: Balanced white balance

Tone

What do passive aggressive emails and photography have in common? Tone.

Tone describes the range of gray tones between highlights and shadows. You should see the gentle gradation of shades in photos just like you see with your eyes. If you are seeing very dark shadows in a photo or no shadows at all, there might be a tone issue.

Before: Too dark tone

Before: Too light tone

After: Correct tone

To view the original article, visit the Planomatic blog.