4 Easy Steps to Retouch Your Real Estate Image Using Photoshop
Every photo shoot of a property doesn’t end with the pictures making their way to the public. In between these, images undergo real estate photo retouching in order to dab on a little bit of magic to add to the charm and attractiveness of it. Seasoned photographers understand that the process of real estate photo retouching requires minimum techniques with an addition of their personal touch, aided with a real estate photo editing software to make post-production achieve its goal. These techniques are a result of the psychological perceptions that potential property buyers look for when buying properties and are considered the ones that boost sales the most. This is not to say that other techniques do not work, but there is a boundary between what is considered proven and those that aren’t as, just yet.
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Photoshop as the Software of Choice
The name Photoshop by Adobe is one of the highly utilized real estate photo editing software in the industry. It comes complete with all the toys and every real estate photo retouching enthusiast can ever dream of. There are tools for light adjustment, color changes, object selection, and even as far as complete photo manipulation. This real estate photo editing software also comes with its latest release assisted by artificial intelligence, and countless years of spin-off software that are targeted to make sure every need is met.
4 Easy Steps to Successful Retouching
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Go for color and light correction
These are the first and foremost important aspects of any real estate photo retouching project. It lays the foundation for succeeding techniques and allows a cleaner path moving forward.
Color Correction - To the most common color correction requirement, one needs to look out for color casts. These are the appearance of unwanted color filters brought about by the dominance of a color within the image’s composition. The camera captures it unknowingly as if it were unable to adjust automatically to the photo requirements but can be removed with real estate photo editing software. Some tools in Photoshop allow quick and easy color cast removal such as color sampling and dedicated color cast removal tools.
Brightening the Photo - These adjustments will be a breeze with all the brightening sliders available on a single panel. Photographers just need to make the necessary incremental changes and Photoshop will easily show you in real time, the adjustments as you make them. Some of the names of the sliders you want to consider are brightness, contrast, and shadows. Mixing these at levels appropriate to each picture will yield a more visible and more in-depth look to each image.
Reducing Noise - Noise is inherent in every photo. They come in the form of grains or small patterns of light disturbances. Photoshop can get rid of these through a dedicated noise reduction tool found under the filter menu. Noise reduction at this stage in real estate photo retouching ensures that the photo is clear, and any adjustments made moving forward will not amplify the noise, therefore muddling the image further.
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Perspective adjustment is key
One of the limitations of photography is being able to capture the entirety of an image while making sure everything looks straight and rectified. Distance, height differences, and lens capabilities are just some of the contributors to this
Interior Shots - Shooting bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, and garages will always be an opportunity to emphasize the amount of space available within a property. Real estate photo editing software can definitely further enhance what the camera has taken to showcase the potential room for inhabitancy. The use of wide-angle and fisheyes as lenses will enable the photographer to snap these photos at the expense of compromises in curving some edges. Real estate photo retouching must step in to keep a keen eye out for these imperfections and ground them back to reality.
Exterior Shots - Shots from the outside is a must to get the look of the property and this will make the headlines for the listing. Now the only problem is, some properties might be higher than normal, requiring farther distance to shoot from in order to make it appear standing up rather than leaning backwards. However, it might not always be a luxury to get some distance so employing a realty editor software will have fill in that void. Photoshop has options and tools do deal with leaning objects and fix them, so they appear as if they were happily sitting on an x-y plane perfectly.
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Adding or eliminating: The Art of Object Staging or Removal
Photo shoots will not always be in the most ideal conditions. Professionals work through the property’s state in the interest of time, but also take into consideration what they can do in real estate photo retouching to still achieve the end in mind.
Staging and decluttering - Adding in some furniture or accents is critical to the overall appeal of the image. An empty room will simply not charm the audience as much as a curated one would. Therefore, Photoshop as a real estate photo editing software is capable of throwing in some woodwork and furnishings to give it an authentic feel and touch. On the other side of the fence, Photoshop can remove unsightly clutter from the property. Some homes will still be occupied by the time the shoot happens and thus a ton of everyday objects will be left all around the ground and perhaps on the furniture.
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Finishing up
The last step that needs to happen is to make sure everything is in order. Photoshop can do localized adjustments on brightness and color in case the entire image does not look right on an overall adjustment from the sliders. There could also be final changes that require a touch up such as small blemishes and general items simply missed during the process. Render your work, save it, and it is now ready for listings!
Conclusion
Real estate photo retouching can be done in 4 easy steps despite the daunting number of items that needs to be covered. As long as these major steps are kept in mind, the image will receive the benefit of having its basic needs enhanced, hence, will be ready for websites, social media, and print ads to name a few. All in all, it isn’t hard to take an image to the next level, all you need is a trusty real estate photo editing software in Photoshop and these steps.
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