These days, with the help of Instagram and Photoshop, anyone can be a photographer. In fact, approximately 300 million users post on Instagram per day, and in 2012 alone, Instagram hosted over 500 million images. There is an unfathomable number of photographs floating around on the Internet, but how many of these images can be considered quality photography? The National Press Photographers Association conducted a study that found that people were able to distinguish between a professional photograph and one taken by an amateur 90% of the time. This should be a big hint for those conducting sales via the Internet: Hire a professional.
The real estate industry is especially affected by the public’s response to amateur and professional photography. With 92% of home buyers searching for homes online, the quality of your listing photos are a crucial factor in the value of your home. Homes with photos taken with a DSLR camera, as opposed to a point-and-shoot, have been proven to sell faster and closer to their listing prices.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shoot your own photographs. But if you do, it would be wise to go to a photo editing company for professional photo retouching services and more. Hiring someone with experience to edit your photographs can make all the difference when it comes to attracting prospective buyers. Services you may want to look into include color correction, background removal, photo restoration, retouching, and culling. Choosing the right photographs to display with your listing can be a challenging task for the untrained eye, which is why photo editing companies are offering professional photo culling service, as well. Culling is the process of selecting the best images out of those taken during a shoot. With digital photography, you may be taking hundreds or even thousands of pictures, and many of them will look almost identical. A professional photo culling service will study all of the images and choose those that are most likely to appeal to buyers.
With so many photographs in existence on the Internet, yours need to stand out above the rest in order to serve their purpose. Most home buyers begin their search online, and if the photographs don’t impress, buyers are far less likely to read the full listing.
