In my office we have a professional photographer on staff, and he is the God of Photoshop.  I get a new listing, finish up with the staging, then our guy goes in and takes the photos – and he is really, really good.   He has a fabulous camera and lens as well as good lighting equipment.  And he knows how to use them like a virtuoso musician plays a fine instrument.

When he returns to the office, he downloads them onto his computer and begins to work his magic.  And he does it with integrity.

Once he removed a delivery van double-parked in front of a listing near Dupont Circle.  He didn’t change a thing about the home’s façade, but with no van to get in the way, you could really see it.

Another time, he erased cat claw marks from the slipcovers on a sofa.  Again, it didn’t change anything about the room, though it did make for a much nicer photo.  

I remember a few years ago at another company, I watched as someone removed a window air conditioner (the place had no central air).  Then he replaced the hideous portrait hanging over the fireplace mantel with a different work of art that looked much better.  He tidied up the kitchen, zapping clutter off the countertops.  He also “repaired” some nasty plaster damage and made the Formica counter tops look a bit more like granite.  But he didn’t get the sellers to declutter the kitchen or paint and plaster the walls.  Nor did they replace the ugly painting or the counters in the kitchen.

Photo editing has reached a point where you can take a total dump and make it look more than presentable.  But just because you can doesn’t make it a good business practice.

For me, I guess the bottom line is keeping photo editing to a level where it doesn’t raise expectations too far above the property’s ability to meet them.  You want the place to look good enough to attract buyers, getting them in the front door.  And I can’t help but wonder – if what they see is markedly different than what they expected, is that better than having buyers pass up seeing the house because the photos, like the house, are not real appealing?

Having good pictures for on line listing information is a huge plus, and so is getting your clients to stage their home so it looks fabulous.  If there is a hideous ancestor above the mantel, send her to the basement and replace the portrait with something or someone more appealing – in the house as well as in the photos.  If the place is cluttered, stash the trash.  If you have peeling paint and cracked plaster, you need more than Photoshop to repair it.

Goofing with photos on an ugly, messy house to tart the place up in Photoshop is like doing massive touch ups for a picture you plan to post on Match.com – sooner or later the guy is going to see the real you!