Clients in the real estate industry want to see vibrant and captivating real estate property images. Those images should prompt them to visit the property or get in touch with a realtor. Given this scenario, real estate photographers, property photo studios, and property listing sites are required to ensure that their real estate photos don’t look gloomy.

Even with the best cameras and photography skills, real estate photographers struggle to avoid improper shadows, gloomy sky, dusty walls, shabby color, or harsh surroundings that weaken the beauty of the property. This makes real estate image editing a mandate for real estate photographers.

Real estate photographers can handle post-processing of images, either through DIY – Do It Yourself approach or can outsource it to a professional real estate image editing company.

Let’s weigh the benefits and challenges of DIY versus outsourcing real estate image editing. In the article, we will also see how real estate photographers can choose between DIY and outsourcing.

Do It Yourself Approach

The DIY approach might save your real estate photography business a few dollars. But, can fail you at grabbing some of the best business opportunities and make profitable growth.

• 79% online home buyers’ on Zillow, the leading real estate marketplace; termed viewing property photos extremely or very important to their home-buying experience. Of which 35% of homebuyers make an offer on a home without seeing it in person.
  This clearly means an increase in requirement of property pictures of homes, commercial spaces, buildings, land holdings, real estate projects in progress, etc. If real estate photographers get busy editing and retouching all the property pictures they clicked; their competitors will reach out for new assignments. Can they afford to let go such valued earning opportunities?
• Zillow research suggests that a count of twenty-two to 27 property images is ideal and makes property sell like hot cakes. Properties with less than nine images are 20% less likely to be sold within two months.
  Real estate online listings are not the only place where property photos are used. They are supposed to be of high quality and attractive wherever advertised, i.e. signage, open house flyers, social media posts etc.; so all places today’s buyers look for. Can your in-house team edit these number of property images?
• Directing an in-house team of image editors, require advanced computer systems, latest licensed software, and a classy space that accommodates them. All these require additional investment of dollars and time.
  Photographers are also required to click lot of real estate pictures to manage the continuity and maintain their stature in real estate photography business. Can they deliver so many high quality real estate images while capturing property images?
• Virtual staging has emerged as a dire necessity to make properties look more attractive and hence sell faster. Digitally placing tasteful furnishings and décor into images of vacant rooms to produce attractive and professionally staged property photographs make properties sell for top dollars. Can photographers hire virtual staging capabilities and pay them salaries at par with market?

It is a wonder; there are real estate photographers who want to take the DIY image editing approach. More than 70% photographers find real estate picture editing to be a boring and monotonous task. They think that unlike portrait photography/images of human models; subjects in real estate photographs are the same boring kitchen and living room furniture, empty rooms, and lush lawns that never come live.

Now, let’s check out on some of the top benefits of outsourcing real estate image editing, as against the challenges of taking the DIY approach.

Outsource Image Editing

Outsourcing real estate image editing enhances the appearance of properties to make them look sale ready. Photographers across countries spend time winning bids for photography projects and meeting customers; instead of doing property image enhancement. Outsourced property photo editing service providers are pro at doing it – naturally. Some advantages of outsourced image editing:

1. Cost-effective: The open market policy in India makes it easy on procedural bottlenecks and taxes. Real estate photographers can get image editing done at minimum cost and save up to 60% of image editing expense, if they outsource the task.
2. High quality deliverables: Instagram styled pictures fail at making real estate purchases, a success. It requires High Quality photo editing skills for post processing real estate images. Outsourced image editors are experienced at consistently delivering HDR photo services, helping real estate photographers to make profitable growth.
3. Faster services & time zone benefit: The time zone differences from -5:30 (GMT) through to -12:30 (PDT) favors real estate photographers as if their post-production studios now work 24/7. Photographers from the USA or UK time zones can assign images to editing and retouching companies in India; to receive edited images the next day morning.
4. Latest tools & technologies: With licensed software and hands on experience of property photo enhancement, the best photo editing companies leverage CorelDraw, Lightroom, Adobe Illustrator, etc. and adhere to real estate industry standards to deliver high quality property images.
5. File formats: Outsourcing image editing companies are pro at sharing images in formats such as JPEG, CAD Drawings, TIFF, DWF and DXG files, and PSD. They ensure that the real estate images, when printed; are of high quality and does not blotch the photographer’s name.

We discussed the drawbacks and benefits of outsourcing Vs DIY. Now we will see how real estate photographers can decide which approach is beneficial to their photography business.

How to choose between DIY or Outsourcing image editing?

Photo editing needs differ for every real estate photographer; here are some questions that can help in making the right and confident business decision.

How many real estate images you are required to edit?

The amount of real estate photos you want to edit plays a key role in making this decision. It is better to outsource, if you want to meet the industry requirement of twenty-two to 27 images for every real estate property. Best real estate image editing Companies factor in scalability and flexibility while taking up image editing projects. They are ready to handle fluctuating work volumes which makes outsourcing image editing a smart choice

How stringent are your project deadlines?

Do a small study about time consumed in editing images through DIY approach. Then, compare it with the time taken by the outsourced image editing partner. It will give you clarity if your in-house team would be able to meet stringent project deadlines or not. Leveraging the time zone differences from -5:30 (GMT) through to -12:30 (PDT) to get edits done overnight; tilts the scale in favor of outsourcing.

What’s the budget you are willing to allocate?

You know the thick and thin of budgets of your business. So why not ask for a free quote from third party image editing companies? Comparing that amount with the costs you will spend in terms of time, opportunity cost, etc., will definitely give you insights that outsourcing is beneficial that DIY.

What types of edits you wish to make to your real estate property images?

Taking a DIY approach for basic photo edits like removing minor blemishes and resizing images is fine. However, for enhancing colors, removing improper shadows and objects, improving lighting, fixing walls, and adding green substances to make properties look well-groomed; outsourcing real estate image editing is certainly a better choice and smart move.

Conclusion

With numerous real estate photographers venturing in the marketplace daily, it is imperative for you to stay agile; and outsourcing image editing services can help you do so. With scalability and flexibility as an integral part of projects, outsourced photo editors can handle fluctuating work volumes. They can deliver quality work to help you as a real estate photographer to expand business and get on top of the competition in the Real Estate Industry. Outsourcing real estate photo projects for high-quality editing done quickly and delivered remotely, helps real estate photographers with sale ready images to entice buyers looking to purchase property.