Do You Enhance Your Photos

Photographs are the primary medium where buyers and agents form their first impressions of a property. Whether we like it or not we form opinions about each property as we look through the 5 to 15 photos of each property. To properly market a property it is essential to have those photos tell a good story about the house. God lighting, proper focus, and other elements combine for a great layout.

Unfortunately lighting, weather, and our clients don't always work together to present the best side of a property. In Maple Valley Washington you're more likely to have the gray skies suck all of the color out of your photograph than to have the sun make everything bright.

This is a listing in Kent WashingtonI just took and will use as an example.

This is the raw picture taken with a Nikon 70D Camera. Notice lots of shadows, slightly over exposed sky, and the front door is not really visible.

This one used a series of three photos and ran through Photomatics to make an HDR image.

The HDR image balances the over and under exposed areas of the property. This shot was taken a few days after the record setting heat in Seattle so the lawn was really burned.

Here I literally greened up the lawn and enhanced the tones to make a more pleasing photo for the front shot. Since buyers are so visual and photos can have such a big impact I think it is important to do what we can to enhance the presentation as long as we don't go overboard. So I am asking you whether you consider this a cheating or good marketing?

Ken Crotts, Broker

specializing in hard to sell properties, short sales, pre-foreclosure and expired listings.

Certified Short SaleSpecialist