Real Estate Photography - All about workflow!

Knowing what angles to take and where to take them from is the first step in understanding the process of simplifying the real estate photography work flow.  Use the terminology that we use and you will soon see how easy it is to understand rooms and spaces.  Perfect angles and camera placement will suddenly become second nature to you and you will never second guess yourself again as to where to shoot from.

Learn the key elements to perfect composition using our FIVE simple rules.  Each rule is simple to understand and will ensure your photos look great independently but more importantly as a set of photographs.  After the lectures, be sure to click on the resources to see more samples of images and see if you can start to see the rules in action.  Next take your camera and start looking around your home for frames and start thinking about how you would compose and draw the leading lines.

Creating a meaningful and useful shot list will help you and your client better communicate what needs to be shot and to understand what is important to the client.

Remember you are not just taking one amazing shot after another.  These photographs are part of a larger set, and the set has to be complete.  Like having a set of cutlery with too many forks and not enough knives, having a poorly balanced shot list can ruin your good work.  Learn how we put together our shot lists, the logic behind our method and you will never have to second guess your selections ever again. 

Here is the link to the shot list used in the video

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTUIAWS9Y7AiWKm9XfRqi3WYu0Ll96TexfFOV5yjOPQEDpP5gXaR8pGyHDpyGucKCGYv3PlOcwcqkpf/pubhtml

Or click below to download an Excel version of it.

Delineating Spaces

When shooting rectangular bedrooms it is easy to figure out where to shoot from. But oddly shaped rooms and open concept spaces become a bit harder. This section shows you how to re-think the spaces that you are shooting and to break them up into their elemental parts. Add that with our previous lectures and now you're on your way to understanding it all!

Processing

Like cooking a steak - do you pan fry it, bbq it, sous vide it or roast it? You can do any method but you have to do it right. What is the best method, what are the pros and cons of each and what is the best for your clients.

Real estate is the same. You can do HDR, you can use Flash, you can use a combination but what are the pros and cons of these methods and what is best for real estate?

Photoshop

Many people get turned off by the thought of using Photoshop because it is such a complicated and robust program. But Photoshop also has amazing power and capabilities that no other software does and it is because of that we can simplify our processing to get perfect photos every time without having to rely on color sliders and grading tools.

Link to check out Photomatix

https://www.hdrsoft.com/order.php?id=225&redir=p

Be sure to get the full package with the Lightroom Plug in!

Who better to talk about Photomatix than Rob Pepper from HDR Soft.  Ron has been with Photomatix since close to the beginning of the company's inception.  He is a brilliant 360 degree panorama photographer and was instrumental in forging the direction of Photomatix.  Join us as he takes us through Photomatix and shows you how to set it up.

Processing gets repetitive and you need to streamline it as much as you can.  In this video we will introduce how you can create actions to make your processing faster!

LR Filtering

Once you have your files, your RAWs your TIFFS and EDIT Files - you tend to get disorganized and will start to become confused. This lesson shows you how to filter files easily to keep things exactly where you need them.

Our simplified process is amazing for getting you that 95% to a perfect photo.  Now lets take it to 100% using Lightroom to tweak each photo so its perfect.  And not only that - in this lesson we will show you how to make presets and even add computation presets. Learn to use multiple presets on the same image to make things even easier.

Exporting from Lightroom

The final step in the workflow is to export the photos in sizes that are relevant to your clients.  Here we will learn what sizes I like to use to send to my clients and why. 

LR Keyboard Shortcut

By now you probably found that selecting two images, right clicking, selecting EDIT IN... and finding Open as Layers in Photoshop... is a pain. So here is a lesson on how to make that into a simple keyboard short cut. This video and method only works on MACOS - I am looking for a way to do it in Windows - if you have a way to do this in Windows please let me know and I will make it worth your while.

Keyboard - System Settings

Keyboard Shortcuts

App Shortcuts

Remember - our process is unique and so is real estate.  We don't have to worry about moving subjects and we don't have to worry about the speed of autofocus so our needs are different than many other types of photography.  We will discuss what is important in our gear selection here from camera bodies, to lenses and flashes.

Here is the gear that I use:

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Canon 5DSr (Main camera for all builder and architect work)

Canon 6DmkII (Back up camera and main camera for all my Real Estate work)

12-24mm F4 DG HSM Art

Canon 24-105L  f4

Godox V860 - https://bit.ly/3yunCmV

Godox AD200 - https://bit.ly/3yGM593

Godox XPro2 Controler - https://bit.ly/41UCskn

Gitzo tripod kit Mountaineer, series 2, 4 sections 2542

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HDR Soft Photomatix - https://www.hdrsoft.com/order.php?id=225&redir=p

We are going to be using a Canon based camera for the initial set up.  This set up is the most efficient set up of the way we shoot real estate and is the same set up that I use for all my staff at Calgary Photos!

Detail Shots

It's just like framing and composing your interiors but this lecture will help you bridge that gap from rooms to details. Let's find where to create our frames and seeing the frames when shooting from angles.

Exteriors

Exteriors tend to follow the same rules as interiors in terms of delineation and shot locations. Here I will discuss some of the differences and then go into a quick lesson on how I like to edit that front exterior to make it pop.

Thanks to Excel Homes in Cochrane Alberta, we can take you through a typical real estate shoot and I can discuss with you how I delineate spaces, think about spaces and essentially take you through a typical shoot.  And another special thank you to The Camera Store for providing the videography services for this section of the course.

Vanishing Point is one of the most commonly used tools for editing real estate.  I use it almost daily!  This tutorial talks about the basic concept of vanishing point.  Try this out yourself.  You will see that getting that initial plane mapping done perfectly will determine how good the vanishing point cloning will work.   

And for anyone asking - yes this video is on YouTube but it is so important that it needs to be here as well but with that being said the next lecture has a real world application for vanishing point which you too get to try so watch it - learn it - and enjoy playing around with it.

Try vanishing point in a real world situation.  Check out this basement with a patterned wall paper which makes Vanishing point an absolute must!

This was a cute video we made a few years back to help our clients learn about the fundamentals of photography.  It was an easy way for us to tell our clients but at the same time keeping it light and fun.

Here is the secret to our success.  This video is part of our in-house training program and its mandatory for all of our staff to view.  I hope you find it helpful in getting into that customer service mindset!