Perfect real estate photo with a smartphone

PROPER PREPARATION IS HALF THE BATTLE
How to Make Your Property Photo-Ready

The key to perfect property photos is lighting: Always turn on all the lights in the property (even in bright sunshine), and open all curtains, blinds, shutters, etc. Don’t worry if the weather outside isn’t cooperating; our AI-powered “fair weather” mode quickly and automatically creates a beautiful atmosphere inside the property during post-processing.

Once the lighting is in place, the next step is the condition of the property. Informing your sellers/landlords in advance about your requirements will save you time. Ultimately, the property should be presented in the best possible condition. This includes:

• No visible trash or moving boxes in the property
• No cleaning supplies or similar items left out in the kitchen or bathroom
• No clothes drying racks
• Clean beds
• Closed toilet lids (and please, no litter boxes either)
• Tidy wardrobes and open shoe racks
• Clean windows

Another important point for creating a welcoming home for prospective tenants is that the apartments should be as depersonalized as possible. This includes asking owners to remove family photos and religious objects (such as crucifixes). Once this is done, you’re all set.

FROM BEGINNER TO MASTER
The right image technique delivers better quality

Avoid digital zoom and flash, as these significantly degrade image quality. Just like with a prime lens on your camera, footwork is also a form of zoom – just manual.

Those familiar with image development can also shoot in RAW format on their smartphone – for even better results and to have more flexibility during post-processing. RAW is a large, unaltered “digital negative” file with maximum image information, allowing for flexible post-processing, while JPEG is a compressed, smaller file that is already developed in-camera and immediately shareable. The advantages of RAW are that white balance, exposure, etc., can be adjusted more flexibly later, the color depth (12 or 14 bits per color channel in RGB) is significantly higher than with JPEG (8 bits per channel), and there is a greater dynamic range that reveals more detail in both bright and dark areas. The disadvantage is that these much larger image files in RAW format then need to be developed, e.g. with Adobe Lightroom, in order to convert them to JPEG, whereas JPEG files are immediately readable, since the compression/development has already taken place on the smartphone.

An interim solution is the so-called HEIF format (HEIC on iPhones). These files are more storage-efficient than JPEG files and therefore generally of higher quality, as they allow for a higher color depth (up to 16 bits per smartphone camera). However, they are not readable or processable in every program.

Our photo enhancement software currently only allows editing of JPEG files, but we plan to offer RAW and HEIF file editing in the future.

Another important feature that few people are aware of is the HDR mode on smartphones. This uses different exposure times for bright and dark areas of the image. This mode should ideally be enabled by default, and it is particularly useful when the sun is shining intensely into one part of the frame while the other remains relatively dark.

THE RULE OF CHOICE WHEN IT COMES TO THE MEDIUM
Portrait or Landscape?

Whether to use portrait or landscape format depends on the medium: In most cases (website, brochure, etc.), we recommend pure landscape images in 4:3 format; alternatively, 16:9 also works.

However, the problem arises when you want to post on social media or run ads. Instagram, for example, requires portrait images. For Stories & Reelcovers, the 9:16 format (1080x1920px) is required, and for posts, at least the 4:5 format (1350 x 1080px), if not even 3:4 (1080 x 1440px – note that this currently doesn’t work with the Meta Business Suite or for sponsored posts). Facebook & LinkedIn are more lenient here; horizontal images in 1.91:1 format (1080 x 566 px or 1200 x 627 px) also work there.

As a general rule of thumb, portrait-format images are always necessary for social media. Since cropped real estate photos from landscape to portrait format usually don’t look good (apart from the significant loss of quality), you should take at least two photos from each angle of the property: one landscape for your website and property listing, and one portrait for your social media.

For portrait-format photos, be sure to also change your camera’s default aspect ratio from 3:4 to 16:9 to ensure the images can be used without loss of quality in Stories. However, keep in mind the cropping for other aspect ratios.