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Photography Tips For Optimal Online Display

Reblogger
Real Estate Agent with Douglas Elliman Real Estate 40OK1100747

Great advice if you are considering photos for your property.

Original content by Sara Bonert

Photos.  Hands down the number one thing people want to see in online real estate, that isn't a secret to the real estate industry.  There are all sorts of statistics that say the amount of traffic a listing receives can be incrementally tied to the number of photos displayed.  One interesting tidbit I recently found on Zillow was that the traffic wasn't that different to homes that had zero vs one photo.  But when you even just went to two, the traffic doubled.  All of a sudden people had a reason to click into the property.  And with the increased views, the leads from that property also doubled.

So what is the next big thing to thing of when comes to photos?  RESOLUTION

I challenge each of you to look at one of your listings on an iPad, a device which has an amazing photo viewer.  Zillow also recently changed our photo viewer on listings, to be more than half the size of the screen.  Low res photos do not look good and can look very pixelated. 

For agents that are investing in high resolution and professional photography, I think this can be a huge differention point on listing presentations for you, as online 'staging' of homes is so important these days. 

To help submit the best photos possible, I asked our graphic artist to provide some guidelines: 

  • The short answer: bigger is always better.  The image servers automatically create the various sizes on the website (and for devices) so if you upload the largest, most high quality photo, it will be downscaled appropriately. Downscaling ("shrinking") will preserve most detail, which is much more preferable than upscaling ("stretching" - this is what causes blurry/grainy photos).

 

  • At the very mininum, 316x234 is a standard photo size. This is the photo size of the photo pulldown on the map & list and in the details pane on iPad. Zillow's photo viewer, as well as the iPad gallery, can support photo sizes of up to 800x500Again, bigger is better.

 

  • If you do any cropping or editing, it is important to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio. This will prevent letterboxing, which creates empty gutters around the photo.

                                      4:3 Picture Ratio

  • This also applies to the orientation of the photo. Landscape is preferred, as portrait photos create letterboxing:

                                   image guttering

 

 

 

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Comments (6)

Ron and Alexandra Seigel
Napa Consultants - Carpinteria, CA
Luxury Real Estate Branding, Marketing & Strategy

David,

Thanks for reposting this excellent information.  Photos make a difference, and many folks zoom in on the photos to see certain aspects of a home, so high resolution is key.

Jun 08, 2010 03:41 AM
Roy Kelley
Retired - Gaithersburg, MD

Thanks for sharing the tips.

 Blooming for Maryland home buyers.

Jun 08, 2010 04:50 AM
Robert Hammerstein
Christie's International Real Estate - Hillsdale, NJ
Bergen County NJ Real Estate

Dave - Thanks for re-blogging this post. Higher res is always the way to go.

Jun 11, 2010 01:54 PM
Christopher Watters
Watters International Realty - Austin, TX
Austin Realtor (512-829-8000)

Great tips. I've been learning a little about HDR. You can make the photos of a property really pop with HDR!

Jun 12, 2010 12:43 PM
Sara Bonert
Zillow - Atlanta, GA
Real Estate Internet Marketing

Hey - I just saw that you reblogged this, thanks!

Resolution is going to be HUGE issue as devices such as the iPad become more common.  The resolution these devices can display is much higher than the computer.  And what may look decent on a computer screen can look terrible on the iPad.  I know a lot of people don't have them yet, but they will soon (or at least something comparible to the iPad). 

The next challenge is going to be getting the MLSs to accept such high res photos.

Jul 07, 2010 02:50 PM
Russel Ray, San Diego Business & Marketing Consultant & Photographer
Russel Ray - San Diego State University, CA

Many sites and MlS's now recognize that sometimes a portrait picture is better than a landscape picture and have set their algorithims to get rid of the letterboxing.

Jul 13, 2010 08:04 AM