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

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

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.

Go to your My Pictures or Pictures and locate the photo(s) you want to email. Right Click on the photo.

Use Windows to Resize Photos for Emailing

Move the cursor to “Send To” and another window will open. Click on “Mail Recipient” and the “Attach Files
window will open (this is a Vista window, but XP is similar).

Select Resize Resolution

Click on “Attach” and Windows will resize the photo and open Outlook Express Create email form with the photo attached. If you want to attach a number of photos just depress the Ctrl Key to select multiple photos and then Right Click on a photo, select the resolution and when you click Attach all of the selected photos will be resized and attached to the email.

Outlook Express (Windows Mail) with Photo attached

That was easy. Now that you know how to do resize photos for emailing you won’t be cluttering up the Internet with excess bytes and your friends will thank you for not cluttering up their inboxes and hard drives.

There are many other reasons you might want to resize photos and easy ways to accomplish the task which I will discuss in a future post. If your friends and family members are filling up your inbox a tactful way to suggest they change their ways is to send them a link to this blog and post.

Wayne http://www.correctphoto.com