rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

That is strange. In my experience, Zillow has used photos published by a Realtor when the house was last ‘for sale’.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

The previous owner, a good friend, never had the house arranged as it is shown. She was her own realtor for the house's only sale.

MikeT46 Loc: Hermantown,MN

I agree with the others who found the images very acceptable. The colors seem quite realistic, rather than artificially saturated (for artistic rendering).

Bayou

The images are ALL a stop or so over exposed. For all to be overexposed points to a global (to this shoot anyway) issue. Perhaps the exposure compensation setting was askew. More likely is that the monitor used to process the shots is set too dark, resulting in ALL the photos being over brightened in PP. Modern monitors do gradually change, and do naturally grow dim. Frequent calibration is important.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Zillow did that? They had pictures of your art work on a fabricated room When I look on zillion houses that have not been on the market recently simply show the exterior view.

All1317

1. Isaw nothing wrong, 2. Y didn't u make a backup which every other photographer on earth has learned to do and now u have learned the hard way if u haven't formatted ur card since u could just plug just the card not the camera into the computer and view them u might get lucky and retrieve a few

JD750 Loc: SoCal

The customer requires that he delete them. A backup would would not serve any useful purpose.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Is it possible the images were changed by when the customer received them or uploaded them? Possibly could be a color profile issue or maybe the customer “adjusted” them? If their monitor was out of Wack they might have adjusted them.

Q: You are using a calibrated monitor in post, correct?

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

I hate to keep sayg this because folks are gonna think I am old as Methuselah and started in commercial photography during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) but chronologically and experience-wise speaking it's been over half a century.

I have done my share of interior and exterior architectural and real estate work, food and beverage layouts, and all kinds of people, places and stuff. In all that time I can't remember any client, real estate agent or broker, art director, a private or corporate client asking me to misrepresent anything, commit outright fakery, or participate in any kind of false advertising, consumer fraud or all sorts of dodgy shenanigans. I was never asked to destroy negative or transparency or delete a file. I have been asked to not show certain images in my portfolio or online while an advertising campaign is in the works, that is until the advertisement is published. I have a policy NEVER to sell imagesproducts for my commercial client to any other commercial entity.

Some of the folks on the forum are continuously worried about over-processing, too much saturation, etc. So, consider this. Most commercial clients simply want their products and/or services to be represented in the best light, perhaps in the most ideal settings and stylizations. Just as an average portrat client would not want to appear unkempt with seemingly ill-fittg clothing in a portrait, a realtor would not want an advertised property to seem messy and poorly maintained, and at least want it shown tidily or modestly decorated. In high-end home sales usually, things are expected to be professionally decorated and just so.

A competent, conscientious, and ethical photographer will do his or her best to address a wide variety of situations and work with and idealize whatever furnishings are at their disposal. In my opinion, an incompetent or inexperienced photographer is more likely to poorly render an aesthetically pleasing interior and not adequately illustrate its potential, than a good photograher will exaggerate or misrepresent a mediocre location.

"PhotoShop" is not the work of the devil and it ain't anything new! In the ancient days of film, there were several colour transparency films from Kodak alone with varying degrees of colour saturation. You could pick a Professional Ektachrome emulsion for authentic or exaggerated colour rendition, go to Kodachrome or try several Fuji or Agfa offering for other colours and saturation and biases. More manipulation was often applied in the colour separation process and AIRBRUSH was the old PhotoShop!

There are a few ongoing TV programmes about folks buyg, selling and renovating houses. There is one where the realtor tasks the clients with 3 various properties. The most frequent comment I have observed for the buyers is something like "I can see myself or my family living here". Sometimes the property is in need of extensive renovation but something about it- the size, the location, the view from the widows, the way light comes in-etc. whatever strikes them. So, when I go to shoot an interior, I try to put myself in the viewer's place and try to find somethg special- sometimes its a simple detail.

jbhess

Franky, I agree with Linda, my first impression was that the pictures were slightly out of focusl

Artcameraman Loc: Springfield NH

Low contrast, punch it up. Now t bad for RE sales photos.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

What a wonderfully condescending reply!! Thank goodness the mitigating element is the spelling error. Just saying.

If you didn’t mean it that way you might want to re-think how it appears to others.

twosummers Loc: Melbourne Australia or Lincolnshire England

Thanks everyone - this job was for a "new" agency that I had not done any work for in the past. When working for agents directly (and as an agent myself) I became happy with my photographs (having studied the subject for some time) also using my previous agency I did not have any issues. This particular agency pays a very poor standard rate and tells the seller that a maximum of one hour will be required for photographs and floor plan measuring. I'm convinced that the agency may have reduced the images (from massive) before uploading to rightmove (who also set an upper yet generous maximum image size.

However I take on board all of your suggestions and examples - thank you all