Exterior Property Photo Editing
Why are all property photographs taken on sunny days?
It is easy to think that this is the case when you rarely see the grey skies which are so common in Coventry, Warwickshire and England in general. Blue skies in property photos have, however, become a non-negotiable. We live in an attention economy and you have barely a second to stop potential buyers from scrolling past your listing, and a grey sky will not cut it. Replacing a grey sky with a realistic blue sky gives more appeal and draws attention. It is important that the sky is realistic to the light falling on the house, therefore it is important to maintain a library of skies from different times of the day and different seasons. A mid winter, midday sky may not be the best choice if you can clearly see a sunset in the reflections of the windows.
Bringing up the brightness of brickwork by raising exposure and shadows definitely helps add to the overall brightness of the image. If time permits, taking a range of exposures, and exposing for each element within the photo (house, driveway, garden etc.) and merging these together in Lightroom or photoshop will create a high dynamic range (HDR) image, which with some tweaking will allow every part of the image to appear bright.
If grass has died from a drought or has ice on it, this can be made more appealing by adding an adjustment layer on photoshop and painting over the grass with a suitable green colour and using a soft light blend mode. Whether this shows potential or is a false representation of the property is up to you!
If you are unable to get a suitable distance from the property when taking the exterior images the house may look warped or not straight. This can be adjusted in Lightroom by skewing the image forward and cropping where necessary. For those with more technical knowledge, a tilt and shift lens for the camera can prevent the need for these adjustments, this type of lens is particularly effective for photographing taller buildings.
An example of these tips can be seen in the before and after image below.
Before and after editing the photograph of back of a house.
