For those who specialize in real estate photography, it is common to say this genre of photography is fraught with its own unique set of challenges, from dealing with challenging lighting conditions such as balancing interior and exterior light to time constraints to low budget and short turnover time. In the competitive world of real estate, it is almost non-negotiable for photographers to produce high-quality images to help properties look their best through the help of post-processing. While mastering these post-processing techniques has proven to significantly improve the outlook of the deliverables and also overcome the shortcomings of on-location shoots, they often take years to learn and master. Thankfully, the advancements in AI photo editing tools are making these hurdles easier to overcome and helping you gain a competitive edge in this tough market. In this article, we will explore the common challenges faced in real estate photography and how AI photo editors can help address them efficiently in editing real estate photography.
Common Challenges in Real Estate Photography
Real estate photographers often find themselves facing several challenges that can greatly diminish the appeal of a property. Poor lighting is a frequent issue. As much as we would want all our shoots to have perfect lighting right away, they often don’t. This is because interior lighting is often designed for homeowners to be comfortable in it and not strain their eyes by being overly bright all the time. Hence, the lack of a brightly lit light source will often make rooms appear to be dim and uninviting in the images. This is where editing comes in to enhance the photos, correct the lighting problems, and transform these spaces into bright, welcoming environments.
Oftentimes, real estate photographers also do not have enough time to set up extensive lighting gear due to on-location time constraints, which can end up compromising the overall image quality. Thankfully, with the new generation of post-processing and AI editing tools, real estate photographers can rely on them to recover the images after the shoot. They offer a quick and effective solution while allowing for significant improvements without the need for additional lighting equipment on site.
Another challenge is dealing with the difference between interior and exterior light. Bright exteriors can often lead to overexposed windows when you expose the interior light, while interiors may become underexposed if you choose to expose the exterior light. Unless you are delivering a very specific set of artsy real estate images, it is usually more appealing to ensure both interior and exterior lights are properly balanced for a pleasing-looking image. This can often be done by adding lights to the interior or resorting to shooting bracketing and post-processing techniques to harmonize these differences.
While real estate photographers usually focus on getting a perfect interior image, there is no denying that a strong exterior image that provides location context helps to lift up the images of the listing. This is where having dull skies during your shoot days is also going to be a major turn-off, especially if the view is the main selling point of the property. While rescheduling for the shoot is the best approach to handling this external factor, most of the time real estate photographers will not have the luxury to do so and can only resort to post-processing techniques of sky replacements to make the image appealing again.
Tips to Overcome Real Estate Photography Challenges
After we have discussed all the common challenges in real estate photography, here are several tips that can be employed to overcome the challenges and enhance the final image outlook. As we all already know by now, retouching and photo editing are crucial steps to overcome the shortcomings caused by on-site challenges to showcase the properties in their best outlook possible. It is only logical for photographers to employ an effective and efficient editing workflow that can turn an ordinary photo into an extraordinary one when dealing with a high volume of work.
This is where professional photo AI editing tools such as Imagen come in. The perks of deploying such AI tools are to help real estate photographers adjust the lighting and colors of the images effectively and consistently automatically. This can drastically improve the appearance of properties, making them more attractive. Hence, improving the photographer’s work. For instance, boosting the brightness in dark areas and enhancing color saturation can make photos pop, therefore bringing out the best features of the property.
You may also consider removing unwanted objects such as power lines, background vehicles, or clutter in your photos to further bring your image to the next level. This is because these unwanted objects can sometimes be distracting and take away from the property’s appeal. For this, you may consider using tools like the clone stamp, healing tool, or generative remove tool in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop to clean up those distractions for a tidier and more appealing image.
Lastly, you may also consider refining your photo composition by cropping and straightening. Adjusting the angle and perspective of the image can help to make the rooms look more proportional and appealing with minimal effort through the help of AI tools provided by Imagen. Do not overlook how these minor adjustments can make a significant difference in the overall presentation of real estate photos, helping to showcase properties in the best possible light.
For more real estate photography tips, you may visit Imagen's recent guide on the topic and learn how you can implement AI tools to make your editing work more efficient.
Utilizing AI Photo Editing Tools to Simplify Your Property Photography Workflow
In real estate photography, time is of the essence. Therefore, utilizing an effective AI photo editor such as Imagen can significantly streamline the editing process. Tasks such as color, lighting adjustments and perspective correction can be easily automated through Imagen's Lightroom photo editing AI assistant. These AI photo editor solutions are packed with AI real estate editing tools specifically designed to tackle common real estate photography challenges efficiently.
Imagen’s AI-powered Real Estate Photo Editor is the newest tool specifically tailored to solve real estate photography challenges. It offers a suite of AI-powered tools designed to enhance real estate photos efficiently. AI photo editing features such as HDR merging for vibrant high-dynamic-range photos, perspective correction with improved accuracy, automatic crop, and photo straightening for perfect horizons, color and lighting adjustments can be found in it.
When used in combination with the dedicated Imagen AI editing profile, you can ensure the highest editing quality for every single photo. You can also be sure that both your indoor and outdoor real estate shots consistently look their best in any condition. This is especially beneficial for commercial real estate photography, where volume, consistent quality, and speed are crucial. Besides, there are also upcoming AI tools such as Window Masking and Sky Replacement that Imagen AI promises to bring in the upcoming updates that will seamlessly fix those little real estate challenges in a fraction of the time, making it one of the best AI real estate solutions currently available in the market.
With the usage of Imagen AI-powered Lightroom editor, real estate photographers can also effortlessly enhance and improve the lighting and color balance of their images, making their photos look more natural and appealing. AI image editing tools like this edit photos by adjusting the brightness and color tones automatically, saving the photographer time and effort in the long run.
Other than that, it is also important to ensure that real estate photographers correct distortions caused by wide-angle lenses or imperfect shooting angles before delivering their images. This is where Imagen's AI perspective correction tool comes in handy, as it automatically fixes any distortions, ensuring that your property photos have straight vertical and horizontal lines with accurate perspectives, which is crucial for professional-looking real estate photos.
As we have previously discussed, HDR imaging is probably one of the most important features that real estate photographers rely on heavily to balance out the tricky interior and exterior lighting conditions. HDR merge in Imagen’s AI real estate photo editor essentially combines a series of bracketed photos, usually three or five photos with different exposures, into one new photo with a higher dynamic range. What’s even cooler is that all these are done automatically, with the condition that they all have to be shot less than a minute apart. Combining this HDR merge AI feature with the upcoming AI-driven sky replacement in Imagen, real estate photographers can effortlessly simplify their workflow by addressing lighting issues and enhancing sky details to produce consistently good results with minimal effort.
Lastly, the upcoming automatic window masking feature in Imagen will also help interior real estate photographers perform an easy window pull technique by automatically masking out the window in their interior real estate photos. Window pull is a commonly used technique by masking out the windows in the properly exposed interior photos that have blown-out windows and overlaying it with a properly exposed view of the window. The goal is to balance the exposure between interiors and exteriors, ensuring that windows are not overly bright with the view outside visible and attractive while maintaining a properly exposed interior view.
Conclusion
AI editing tools like Imagen are revolutionizing real estate photography by addressing common challenges such as bad lighting, time constraints, and balancing indoor and outdoor light automatically. These tools not only enhance the real estate photo quality but also make retouching real estate photos more efficient, allowing photographers to deliver stunning results quickly and have a faster turnover.
Try Imagen AI-Powered Real Estate Photo Editor for free and experience the transformation of your imaging workflow.
