Brightening Dark Interiors

OK, maybe you don't have a fancy lighting rig and you don't have the time or inclination to teach yourself HDR photo techniques. That's no excuse for posting excessively dark interior listing photos like this:

At the very least, this unfortunate photo could have been brightened up with any of a variety of photo editing software tools, such as the ones that come bundled with cheap digital cameras. Or Picasa (free). Or Photoshop (complicated and expensive). Or Photoshop Elements (not so complicated, less expensive).

A simple brightness adjustment will not fix the blown-out window but can bring out much of the detail in the dark regions of the photo and greatly lightens the mood:

I'm not saying that increasing the brightness makes this a Good Listing Photo. It simply turns a Bad Listing Photo into one that lets you see the narrow corner of the room that the photographer settled for, instead of just seeing a window with curtains floating in a dark void.

How Pros Get Light and Bright Interior Listing Photos

Do your listing photos have this problem?


Dark interiors accompanied by bright ("blown-out") windows are usually a result of the limitations of your camera when confronted by a high-contrast lighting situation.

Digital cameras are not able to "see" as well as the human eye when it comes to light and dark areas of a scene. They automatically determine the exposure, or the amount of light they let in, usually based on the average amount of light. (The more expensive your camera, the more control you have over how the light is metered.)

The result can either be fine or lousy, depending on the level of contrast. When shooting indoors, the light coming in the windows can be so bright that it fools your camera, making it think the whole room is bright. It then reduces the exposure, causing your room to look like a cave and the windows to look like there's a nuclear blast detonating in the front yard.

There are three ways to deal with this very common problem:

1. Take the photos at just the right time of day, when the light coming in the windows is balanced with the light level in the room. That can be impractical, because these conditions may not occur at the same time of day in each room. And you usually can't schedule your photography according to available lighting conditions anyway.
   
   
2. Use flash photography to compensate for the relatively low light level inside. This also can be impractical unless you are a pro with lots of lighting experience. To solve the lighting problem, it may be necessary to use multiple lights, which must be simultaneously triggered by your camera. That kind of lighting setup is usually only done by professionals, or very dedicated amateurs. Even for professionals, a lighting rig can be too time-consuming to deploy for real estate photo shoots. On the other hand, if you are using an inexpensive point-and-shoot digital camera with built-in flash, the light provided by your flash will seldom extend beyond 6-10 feet and is not sufficient to illuminate an entire room.
   
   
3. Use HDR photography to blend multiple exposures together into one, more natural-looking image. "HDR" stands for "High Dynamic Range" and is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. Done well, HDR accurately represents the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows, so that you don't get blown out highlights or black shadows with no detail.
   
   When shooting for an HDR photograph, the photographer takes several (usually 3-5) identical shots in RAW mode at different exposures. Then those mulitple images are composited into one blended image. The blending process occurs during the digital editing stage.

Here's an example of a room that was taken without HDR (left) and with HDR (right).
HDR enabled the view outside to be seen rather than "blown out," and details hidden in dark shadows inside the room become visible. The result is a more natural and attractive photo.

The photo on the right was also enhanced in other ways as explained here on our photo staging web site.

Is Your Front Exterior Listing Photo a "Money Shot?"

When you put it altogether even a modest home can look inviting without misrepresenting the appearance of the home. Above is an example, with a listing agent's photo on the left, and our re-shoot on the right.Unless the only good photos a house can offer you are on the inside, it’s essential to get an outstanding front exterior photo. That's the picture that must stop the online home-shopper in their tracks. It should make them want to see what the inside photos look like. If the outside shot fails to "zing" them, they will pass your listing by in two seconds or less.

Therefore, it is worth extra time, extra effort, and (if you choose to use a professional photographer) extra marketing investment to make this a true “money shot.” It’s the one picture that can save – or lose – weeks of marketing time and possibly many thousands of dollars at closing.

Here are a few tips to help you understand the range of possibilities for making your “money shot” stand out from the competition.

• Prepare the property properly for photography. I will post a list of do’s and don’ts in my next blog entry.
• Use the right equipment. Cheap point-and-shoot digital cameras are fine, but not if you want to produce good listing photos. I’ll be discussing the minimum gear, so stay tuned.
• Eliminate or downplay distractions. Many listing photos are “almost good,” but the photographer allows a significant blemish to remain in the image, to the great detriment of the result. In future posts I’ll provide examples and pointers on how to work around these problems.
• Try different camera positions to find the most pleasing composition. It’s amazing how much better a listing photo can be made just by standing somewhere other than in the most obvious camera position, and possibly lowering or raising the camera a couple of feet. 
• Consider alternatives to the basic head-on primary shot. Sometimes the side or rear view of the home is better than the front. I’ve shot homes where the side was the front, if you consider the “front” to be the side of the house where the front door is located. In that instance the “side” faced the street, and offered a very drab photo opportunity.
• Make sure the light is adequate for photography. Unless you are a master of high dynamic range photography and have the equipment and software to employ it, you will need to have either good available light or you will need to use flash photography to expose the photos properly. At our firm we tend to use flash very little, preferring HDR for its superior quality.
• Shoot the house in optimal light. If you show up to the property at the wrong time of day then you may find the front of the house in dark shadow, which can be a problem to shoot. Worse, you might get there when the late afternoon sun is shining straight into your viewfinder, making proper exposures impossible. Similar problems can arise with interior shots: bright outside light typically causes windows to appear like glowing white blank screens, and the rooms themselves end up too dark. These situations call for either better timing, when light is balanced, or lighting manipulation. 

It’s alright to fool Mother Nature, up to a point. Listing photos should always present an honest view of the subject property’s features, size, condition and other physical attributes. But it’s OK to take small liberties to make photos look better, when such liberties do not misrepresent the real estate itself. For example, it is fairly common to replace boring gray or flat blue skies with more photogenic ones. Lawns with a tinge of brown might be greened-up a bit, reflecting the effect of a few days of actual watering.

When you put it altogether even a modest home can look inviting without misrepresenting the appearance of the home.