Showcase Your Home : What are you using to improve your photos?

Welcome to Reliberation Sign in | Help

Reliberation > Blogs > Showcase Your Home > Post

What are you using to improve your photos?

By: Gene Carey
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 12:53 PM

Why are agents bothering to include photos that can't be seen in their tours and gallery? How does it benefit the viewer and what is the viewers impression of the agent who posts these useless photos? I have several photo editing programs including PhotoExplosion and Adobe Photoshop but I recently came across an online editor that is worth mentioning called Picnik http://www.picnik.com

This is currently a beta program and sign up is free. Since it operates on the web without any downloads, it gets upgrades without you having to do anything. I tried several photos and even some that I thought looked good looked even greater after I ran them through the program. You can also do neat things with the cropping feature including rounding the borders and adding the same color as your website background to fill in the cropped area. Resizing photos includes automatic sizes for YouTube, Google, aviators, etc. You can also save to different formats such as .jpg, bmp, giff, etc.

They don't currently offer any storage albums but that is something being planned in the future. Give it a try, especially if you don't currently have a decent photo editing program since it works equally well on both Windows and Macintosh as well as all browsers including IE, Mozilla, and Safari.

Comments

Member Since '03	Ginny Lee's Team said: Thanks Gene...That is a great tool....I tried it and it is easy to use. Super Tip July 31, 2007 11:32 AM
Member Since '06	Mike Robins said: Hi Gene, I have been using the google Picasa2 that is a free download and it works great for me. It has just enough features to make your photos look great and the resizing feature is very easy to use. Picasa2.download.googlepages.com Everyone I have told about it is having good luck with it. July 31, 2007 12:12 PM
Member Since '03	Mipeco Realty, Inc - Michaela Krestenic, Broker-Owner said: Gene, thank you for the tip! I have been using Microsoft Picture it! 10 - Premium version. From all the programs I've tried so far, I like it the most. But will definitely check out your Picnik suggestion. July 31, 2007 12:31 PM
Member Since '04	Mary Welch said: Gene, that looks like a user friendly site. Is this the one you used to remove my "glow". I am not sure if I can remove it I will play with it later, thanks. I would say it is my "aura' but it is on the sign, not me. July 31, 2007 1:00 PM
Member Since '03	Gene Carey said: Mary - No, I used Ulead to modify your photo. When I tried a couple of photos, I simply clicked on the Auto-Fix first and it took care of lightening up the photo without even having to go any farther. Here is the link again for you to open and save to your desktop so you can then upload it as your aviator photo. http://media.point2.com/p2a/htmltext/85ab/1bc3/f34d/ce091a04565f609e524b/original.jpg July 31, 2007 1:35 PM
Member Since '03	Gene Carey said: Mike - Thanks for the other suggestion. I will take a look at it as well even though I have plenty of my own programs. I know that a lot of agents can get confused (Mary) when they are standing in front of all the software packages at Office Max, Staples, etc. so these suggestions should make it simple to get the most out of their photos and tours and eliminate some frustration. July 31, 2007 1:40 PM
Member Since '05	Jay & Francy Thompson REALTORS® said: Paint.net is a good, free, photo editing software package. http://www.getpaint.net/ Very powerful, but also has some easy to use "adjustment" tools. There is a RE blogger in Connecticut that has a great series on "Bad MLS Photos"... check it out: http://www.reagentinct.com/category/bad-mls-photo-of-the-day/ July 31, 2007 2:27 PM
Member Since '06	Anson Simque said: I use photoshop 7.0 and I'm happy with it, but I'll try the picnik. July 31, 2007 2:48 PM
Member Since '07	Shelly Constantz said: First: Learn to use my new camera (thanks to all for your suggestions, I have purchased the cannon) Second: learn to use all of Gary's great suggestions. (my to do list) July 31, 2007 7:20 PM
Member Since '03	Mipeco Realty, Inc - Michaela Krestenic, Broker-Owner said: finally had a chance to check out the Picnik site ... it really is a great quick fix tool! August 1, 2007 5:43 PM
Member Since '06	Sharron and Steve Lobman said: Thanks for te great info! August 18, 2007 5:23 PM
Member Since '06	Sharron and Steve Lobman said: the August 18, 2007 5:24 PM
Member Since '06	Natalie Whistler said: I use the Picassa2 that Mike uses. I recently did a presentation for Master's Club members showing them how to access Picassa2 free from Google. The other great thing about this program besides lighting, cutting and cropping your photos & organizing your photos in your entire computer is that you can upload photos to a web album. You can share the photos that you upload to the album or download them to another computer easily. This is great to share listings or even family photos. There are a lot of other great features this program does like even warmifying a photo. I have a listing with very white walls and with the warmify feature it almost makes the walls a beige color which shows a client what a little paint could do for this home. Good luck you all! August 22, 2007 9:59 PM
Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Photo Show program You can do almost anything you want with it, and they even have a free version but I would upgrade. I use it in all my photo shows.. Here is a manual photo of a property I did just a couple weeks ago http://www.photoshow.net/viewshow/mK4Su9SP And here is a moving one, some of you already have seen Done by Full Of Baloney Advertising. ha http://www.photoshow.net/viewshow/mK4Su9SP You can get the free versions right after the show, hey give it a shot Its Free.... and it is a piece of cake to use Have fun vance August 23, 2007 4:52 AM
Member Since '04	Vance Remele said: Oops sorry I duplicated the Full Of baloney above Here is the Maunal photo show http://www.photoshow.net/viewshow/YH5Hm6AJ Vance August 23, 2007 4:57 AM
Member Since '07	Matt Smith said: We just try to shoot good pictures. Keyword TRY. Speaking of pictures take the best picture you can spend time on it, have it just right and Point 2 will brand it for you on your listings page. I think that is just plain WRONG. So much so I started another topic about it. October 31, 2007 3:54 PM