Every real estate agent needs to know a little about photo editing.  But not so much that they start taking out wires and trees from the view shot 🙂

The ethics of photo editing for real estate purposes, should be a “clock hour class”.  Jillayne?  If it IS already, I’d love to sit in on one of those.  I sometimes have the hardest time explaining to agents how much they can edit, and how much they cannot.

Craig Schiller, founder of Real Estaging wrote an excellent article this week called “Set Your Sites Low (talking about camera angle) – To Raise Your Standards”.  Below are a dozen of the 50 or more shots he found on the mls in his area, with too much ceiling.

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Personally, I find it is more about editing the shot after you get home, than it is to “lower your sites” at the time you take the picture.  I use HP Image Zone, which I find to be very user friendly, and does not have the features that can help you erase real features of the home, like telephone wires in the view.

All brokers should be recommending the correct software to their agents, to insure quality photos, without unethical modifications.  Cropping is good.  Brightness and light enhancements is good (assuming new owners could bring in more lamps and better lighting than current owners).  Any software that has basic editing skills will enhance the agent’s value to the consumer.  Point, shoot and upload is no longer “the order of the day”.