The return of the individual and independent real estate agents
With the real estate market becoming more and more competitive and the market itself going through a hard period, it is very challenging times. That said it is also the time when one is witnessing a lot of independent freelance operators in the space, individuals or small groups operating from home more akin to freelancers. The benefit being, it allows these independent small operators and individuals to operate with extremely low overheads and even lesser pressure on top line.
Many of them are just augmenting their current income and are not under undue pressure to achieve staggering growth targets that organizations face. They have no large infrastructure to look after, or no unrealistic growth targets to chase to help sustain a business that grew into a large setup with high operational expenses. The independent individual operators are the old world lean mean outfits and largely depend on a circle of friends, relatives and known associates and the word of mouth generated from this small circle of people. It has been proven time and again that word of mouth is the best way to acquire new business. So not only is the individual operating with very low overheads and cost, but is also having the most efficient method to garner business.
Add to this phenomenon, the fact that today an increasing amount of business is conducted and drawn from the internet. The cost structure allow smaller players to leverage the internet, even though not always as effectively as the larger operators, yet good enough to keep the operations feasible given the low cost structures.
Business when transacted largely through a known base of potential clients and the word of mouth from that circle, the online presence is to showcase the properties and projects available. The large chunks of monies spent to drive traffic are not a critical cog, for the visitors are almost there by personal invite. The next major chunk of expense is to showcase and present the properties and projects. In today`s time and age with advancement in post shoot image enhancement, the small operators can afford to shoot pictures with a mobile phone or a basic aim and shoot camera or a slightly more advanced equipment which they are likely to have in possession meaning no additional investments as far as high end equipment is required.
The quality gap in the images born out of the difference in photography equipment and expertise of the photographer can be covered with a good image enhancement technician with the right kind of software and tool. Thankfully image enhancement services don’t come by at a very high cost. Leaving the small independent operator in a safe place, where he or she can shoot their own pictures and have experts providing REAL ESTATE PHOTO EDITING SERVICES perfect it for them. This can help them compete with anyone in the market, even the professionals. The most common STILL IMAGE ENHANCEMENT SERVICE that would be required while shooting real estate pictures would be COLOR CAST REMOVAL SERVICES given that the normal cameras tend to have bias to one of the primary colors – red, blue or green. These services help remove the predominant color cast and return the picture to its natural best.
Given the overall market landscape – the independent, individual and the small operator finds themselves far more nimble and agile to operate successfully in the highly competitive and sluggish market
2.
Boon of Digital Image technology for the real estate Industry
Ask any real estate photographer of any age or era about the challenges involved in outdoor shoots, rest assured you could fill up reams of paper and still have lots more to hear. That is the nature of the work and for once you can be sure, what you are hearing is not an exaggerated tale. It truly is a job with many a mine laid down across the fields of work – the weather, the light, the landscape and so on.
The cloudy day spreading gloom in your pictures that are meant to entice, the overly bright day robbing the subtleties of the colors and mood meant to tantalize the audience, the woes are never ending. Forever photographers and technicians have been attempting to overcome these challenges both during the photo shoot and post shoot processing.
With the advent and growth of digital cameras and digital imaging, a whole new vista has opened up in the post photo shoot arena. There are software and tools leveraging on new advanced technologies in the field of digital imaging, allowing trained technicians to make significant improvements to the images. The object alone can be removed and worked upon, perfected and placed back in desired background, the background of the image can also be worked upon to ensure the object of the image is highlighted, the technicians ensure that the different elements of the image complement each other and ensure the property that needs to be showcased is highlighted and perfected.
There are so many software, like adobe photoshop, autodesk, and other advanced tools that allow for all this enhancement to be carried out. All these allows the photographer to have a peaceful night of sleep, knowing very well that there is a bunch of artists who are skilled technicians who would be working on the images that were painstakingly shot in the harshness of the day and marred by the cruel uncertainties of nature. The artists not just work on the images, but ensures that they turn out to be perfect, capturing and depicting the true natural beauty.
These artists are magicians who changes the skies in the picture, they remove the gloomy sky and replace it with a sky which is just right, be it in brightness or the color scheme or the texture. It is just right and perfect making sure the house looks at its beautiful best. REAL ESTATE SKY CHANGE SERVICES are among the more popular services that photo editing services along with PERSPECTIVE CORRECTION CHANGES SERVICES and REAL ESTATE IMAGE BLENDING where in the multiple images are shot and then blended to give the best possible image with the best possible colors, textures and tone.
The quantum leap in quality of cameras and the wide range of choice coupled with the huge advances digital images has made, photographers of this time and space must feel lucky and blessed indeed that the post shoot image enhancements add so much value to their sweat and toil. Also a large source of happiness is the fact that it leaves them to do what they love most and what they do best – shoot pictures, leaving the rest in the capable hands of the artist who take over and perfect the images in their post shoot work.
The advances in digital imaging is nothing less than a boon to all real estate photographers and to the real estate industry as a whole
3.
Magic of merging multiple images
From time immemorial man has tried to create mosaic of pictures and artwork. This endeavor is almost as old as paper and is called ‘collage’ deriving itself from the French verb ‘Coller’ meaning ‘to glue’. A collage is putting together assorted works of art on to one board to create a piece of art. It could be scraps of cloth, handwork, paper and magazine cuttings, pictures and so on. This over time has matured into a fine art form and over ages one has seen masterpieces in this genre.
With digital images and software and technology moving forward, it is only natural that the collages also evolved. Most photo viewing applications with basic image editing capabilities offer the option of making a collage of pictures which lay people like you and I can use. In principle this process is as simple as putting together different images into one single frame and creating one image.
Digital imaging and image enhancement techniques have gone further to cater to specific requirements of certain industries. One such move has been the use of techniques like photo stitching, panorama stitching and HDR image blending. All are related and similar with distinctly different applications and techniques in creating the final image.
Real estate photography by nature demands that a wide canvas needs to be captured. Along with that, there are many elements that need to be detailed. The most challenging part of real estate photography is to be able to tell the audience the story most effectively with one image, enticing them to want to see the next. For this to work, one starts with the overall look and feel of the property in question, captured and show cased in its pristine beauty along with the ambience and mood of the surroundings.
This image captures the surrounding area, the grandeur, the theme and the scene of the property be it a house, an office or a sprawling farm with a villa. From here on the story teller in the real estate photographer leads his or her visitor to the inside of the building, walking them and guiding them up the path. Once inside the photographer tries to show them the whole view and layout and takes them through a quick visual trip of the layout, from there on goes on to specifics showcasing and highlighting the aesthetics and utility of the dwellings.
Once the photographer has with his or her images enticed and got the guest inside the house and aroused their interests, they eagerly move from one room to another from one section to another. When this stage has been achieved, photographers should feel that it was a job well done.
So now how does the photographer do this? By far there are two or three techniques used in various combinations. For the outdoors, the photographer clicks three or four images that capture the property from all angles and gives a full view of the property. Once these three or four images are shot, the image enhancing team which provides REAL ESTATE PANORAMA STITCHING SERVICES take over and stitch them together in such a way that the single image gives its viewers the complete view of the property.
Most of the times when the photographer finds the right setting, all the four pictures are shot to similar exposures creating images with similar color tones, textures and overall feel, but for some reason if the images need to be worked on for them to look similar, the image editing technicians would do the needful.
The next service widely used is, REAL ESTATE HDR IMAGE BLENDING SERVICE. Here the photographer takes multiple shots of the interiors (at times done for external shoots too) with varying exposures and angles. Then these images are blended with the appropriate color, texture, tone and temperatures in tandem to give a consistent and perfect feel to the property.
Another varying technique that is used, is to shoot the whole house in varying angles with varying exposures after which the images are HDR blended and then the REAL ESTATE PHOTO STITCHING SERVICES are used where in these blended images are stitched together giving one the whole and complete view of the interiors along with the depth. This effectively gives the viewer a virtual 360° tour of the house.
These three services in combination form among the most critical parts of the real estate photographers` storytelling endeavour.