correctmyphotos

Why are real estate photos on the Internet so dull and lifeless? Because realtors skip an important step–fixing the photo.
I had wondered why the online real estate photos were so bad so I asked my friend Barb, a realtor in the Twin Cities area, to lead me through the process she follows after she lands a new listing.  With signed contract in hand she takes her trusty digital camera and takes the photos she will use to list the property on the online MLS service and for “sell sheets”. Once back at her office she downloads the files to her computer, selects the ones she wants to display and uploads them (full resolution) to the Northstar MLS service.

So, what step did she miss? You guessed it! She didn’t fix them. If you have followed my blog you will know my mantra, “Every photo needs to be cropped and color corrected.”  So, why didn’t Barb take that extra step? Would it take too much time? Did she know how?” Nobody does it.  Didn’t she care?

Knowing Barb there was little doubt that she cares. She is a professional and really does want to show off her properties in the best way possible. I saw that from the sell sheets she had printed by a professional printer (who fixed the photos before printing). But, she just didn’t know how to do it and didn’t want to take the time to learn and use a complicated photo editing software program.

This photo was cropped, color corrected, and resized before uploading

Crop, Correct Color, and Resize Before Uploading to MLS
Barb was concerned that the front veiw of a recent listing was dull and fuzzy so I took the original file image and opened it in CorrectPhoto, cropped it to get rid of the front of the car and driveway and color corrected it with OneClick.  And, the picture was sharp but so was the original photo. So why was it fuzzy on the MLS site? I suspected the answer-the scaling algorithm on the MLS site wasn’t very good and it turned out I was right. So, before uploading I resized the corrected photo to 640×480 and you can see the result. Unfortunately, I don’t have the orginal to show a comparison, but trust me this one is a lot better. I took another one of the photos from the listing and simply color corrected it and here is the comparison.

Real Estate Photos Need to be Color Corrected

In summary, every real estate photo needs the following before uploading to the MLS Service:  1. Cropped, 2. Color Corrected, 3. Resized. 

If you know how to use Photoshop Elements you may certainly use it, however, I would suggest getting  PictoColor’s iCorrect OneClick Plug-in for the color correction. My preference (of course) is CorrectPhoto because it is the easiest for most of us to use and has OneClick Color built in. It took me about 45 seconds to crop, color correct, and resize the house picture.

If you are a realtor I would recommend you take the time to fix the photo before you upload.  In today’s market you need to show off your listings to attract potential buyers. If you are not a realtor tell them how to make their listings better. They will thank you for the tip.

You can bet that Barb’s listings from now on are going to have the best photos of all her collegues. That is until they decide to take a few minutes to fix their photos.

Wayne http://correctphoto.com/CorrectPhoto_Realtor.htm

Fix Photos Before you upload to Facebook
When Craig joined Facebook a few weeks ago he was surprised to find old classmates posting  class pictures on their pages. So, he dug out his elementary scrapbooks (his mother kept everything and gave him the books after he got married) and started scanning the class photos.  And, since we are in the color business he had to fix the scanned photo before he uploaded it to Facebook. The first grade class print was 36 years old so it was a bit faded and a little yellow and the scanned file was a little fuzzy. He could have used Photoshop to crop and color correct the picture with iCorrect OneClick plug-in, but he was in a hurry so he used CorrectPhoto.  Here is the photo he uploaded to Facebook. The original scanned photo is below the fix photo.

Craig's class photo-cropped, color corrected, resized with CorrectPhoto

Craig's class picture-original scan

Regardless of the photo editing program you use, Photoshop, Elements, or CorrectPhoto (these are the only editing programs that you have access to PictoColor’s OneClick Color technology) you should do three (maybe 4) editing steps.

1. Crop the photo. In this example a little cropping to eliminate some of the border area makes the photo somewhat larger and easier to see the faces.
2. Color Correct the photo. The easiest and, frankly, the best is OneClick color available in iCorrect OneClick plug-in for Photoshop or Elements or CorrectPhoto which has OneClick color built in.
3. (Optional) Sharpen the photo. This step is more important for a photo that was scanned with a desktop scanner. It is less important or necessary with a photo taken with a digital camera, particularly one with at least 5 MP.
4. Resize the photo before you upload. This is IMPORTANT. In general, most social websites limit the pixel count of the photo that can be displayed. When you upload a high resolution photo the site will automatically resize (or scale) it down.  In most cases, the scaling algorithm that is used is not very good. So, to ensure the best quality image use the resizing functions in either CorrectPhoto or Photoshop as they are much better.

The point of this post is to suggest that the photos you upload to your Facebook page are a reflection on you. So, take a few extra minutes and fix them so you can be proud of them. It is easy and fun to do. For more information on editing, cropping and rezising photos click on one of the Categories on the left of the home page of this blog.

Wayne www.correctphoto.com

Does your email inbox get full with large photo attachments?
If you are like me you cringe every time you get an email with a photo attachment from one of your friends because you know it is a huge file. My friend Dick does it to me every time he sends a photo. A more personal question is, “Do you do the same thing when sending a photo to a friend?”

Should you Resize the photo before emailing?
As with most questions, the answer is “It Depends.” It depends on what the recipient will do with the photo attachment.  If you are sending the photo so that a high quality print can be made it is better not to resize. However, if the recipient is simply going to view the photo on a computer screen, which is probably the case with the majority of photos sent via email, you should resize the photo before sending it. When you compare the file size of an original photo as it came out of the camera to “screen resolution” files you will understand why resizing is the prudent thing to do.

I will use my Canon G5, 5MP camera as an example. When shot at the max resolution (5MP-2592×1944) the jpeg file size is 2.9 MB (million bytes). Resizing the file to the historic standard computer screen resolution of 640×480 reduces the file to 90 KB (thousand bytes) or today’s more common size of 1024×768 yields a file of 230 KB. That is quite a difference. And, with the resolution of newer cameras at 7, 8, 10, or 12 MP the difference is even greater.

Therefore, I suggest you resize photos to at lease 1024×768 if you are going to email them. If you have more than a couple photos you want to send to someone for printing I suggest you upload them to an online photo service and give the recipient access to the files or record them on a CD and mail it.

How To Resize Photos for Email
There are certainly many alternative ways to resize photo ranging from free online services to photo editing software. These alternatives are worth considering when you need to resize photos for other purposes, such as website design, eBay, Facebook, etc. When you are simply going to email a photo(s) I suggest using the email resizing function in Windows XP and Vista. (The Mac probably has something easy as well, but, as I have said before, I am a Windows guy.) If you are like most of my friends they look at me with a blank stare when I tell them to use Windows to resize the photo. Yes, there is a function in the OS that will resize the photo for emailing, it is FREE, and it is easy to use.  What could be better? Here is how you do it. (continue reading…)