PropertyPreviews-10 Tips to improve your photos in 10 posts: Tip #2

Give your listing online curb appeal.  The front photo of a listing is one of the most important photos in my opinion.  If it captures interest, in will lead to the online shopper to go further down the rabbit hole to view and learn more about that listing.

This tip is mainly for listings where the garage is attached to the front of the house.  A garage can take up a good majority of a front photo.  Lets face it – a garage is a garage.  There is nothing great about it, but you need to show it.  Most people will take a front photo straight on giving the house and garage equal line of sight and making the garage appear large.  What we want to achieve with this tip is a different line of sight, but still capturing the whole house and garage.  If the garage is on the left of the house, you want to position yourself all the way to the right of the house.  This way you are focusing on the house, and while the garage is still in your picture, it is not overpowering the house.  This gives your listing online curb appeal.  Thanks for reading and Happy Selling.

Below is an example.  To be fair I used a standard point and shoot camera on this fine overcast day in the North Midwest.

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Cheers,

Tom

CreateHDR: Online site to Create High Dynamic Range images

HDR (High Dynamic Range) images try to highlight every spot in a photo and make it stand out.  Usually to create a HDR image you need Photoshop or a similar desktop application.  CreateHDR.com allows you to upload images from your desktop or Flickr account and create a HDR image from one photo.  Typically HDR images are created from multiple images with different exposure settings.  Currently the site only allows for the JPEG file format to be uploaded.  There is a pro version under construction on the site that will allow for multiple exposure uploads and different file formats.

Not every photo that is uploaded looks good after it has gone through the process.  There is only so much manipulation you can do to a single upload to make it look like a HDR photo.  Take a look at their public gallery and judge for yourself.  I am looking forward to seeing the Pro Version.  I would bookmark this site to watch for further development.

Free Online Photo Editor-FotoFlexer

The standard for photo editing still remains Adobe Photoshop.  However, using Photoshop does require a learning curve to use and it is expensive.  Photoshop elements $99 & Photoshop CS3 $999.  My favorite webapp for editing photos is FotoFlexer and it is FREE!!!.

FotoFlexer is a free online we application that allows you to upload images from you computer or other online photo applications like (Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, and more)  to FotoFlex for editing.  There are no programs to buy and no subscribtions costs.  The user interface is easy to navigate.  Once your photo is uploaded there are options to crop, resize, add text, and many more.  What is also an advantage is you are able to save the file as a jpeg or png back to any destination you choose. (Desktop, Facebook, etc.)  Give it a try, I think you will find it useful for when you need a quick photo modification.

Remember to subscribe to our RSS feed or email updates to get all of our latest posts.  Happy Selling!!

PropertyPreviews-10 tips to improve your photos in 10 posts: Tip #1

One of the main categories we want to explore in the PropertyPreviews blog is to help Real Estate professionals show their listing in the best possible way. We want your prospects to want to see your listing in person.  In the next 10 photography blog posts we will give you tips you can use today to produce engaging photos.

Tip #1:  Prepping the house just before you are ready to shoot. I know there may be some listings where there is just no hope in making it look appealing. However, in this tip I’m not asking you to clean and rearrange the whole house.  It is up to you to explain to your clients your expectations before you arrive at their home to take photos.  There are a couple small prepping changes that go a long way to make the home look more appealing.  First, go throughout the home and turn on all the lights possible.  A well lit house is always going to look more appealing in a picture.  The second easy home prep tip is to remove all trash cans from the view of the camera.  Garbage is never an eye appealing item, and can make a kitchen look dirty at a brief glance.  Thirdly, put all toilet seat lids down.  Bathroom shots are hard enough, an exposed toilet seat is not going to make the picture look any better.  These may seem like small tasks, but we see many pictures that come into PropertyPreviews.com that could use these tips to make their free video look even better.

Remember to subscribe to our RSS feed or email updates to get all of our latest posts.  Happy Selling!!

Official Company Blog

PropertyPreviews.com, the creators of the free video creation service for real estate agents, has just launched the official PropertyPreviews.com Blog. This blog allows Real Estate professionals to expand their knowledge on low-cost, successful ways to manage their online marketing and learn about emerging real estate marketing trends.

The blog features articles on topics such as marketing properties online, real estate photography, relevant real estate news, as well as articles geared to help agents and REALTORS® increase the perceived value of their properties. Contributors of the PropertyPreviews.com blog focus on helping real estate professionals find focus in a sometimes overwhelming online landscape, and how utilizing online tools can help sell properties better and more efficiently.

About PP.com

PropertyPreviews.com allows you to quickly and easily upload your real estate photos and create a compelling and engaging video presentation of your property in three easy steps. Your online real estate video can then be distributed throughout the Internet to a variety of video hosting sites – all with just a click of a button!

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