A Quick Fix for Falling Walls

In Photoshop Elements you can easily fix falling walls by using Image>Transform>Distort and then just drag the corners around until the walls are parallel with the edges of the photo.

Of coarse one can avoid falling walls all together by making sure the camera is level in the front-to-back plane. However, when the person took the photo to the above they were standing much lower than the home so they had to tilt the camera upward to get the home in the photo so it's not always so easy to keep the camera level. There are special tilt/shift lenses that would solve this problem with equipment but I find that it's so easy to "fix" photos after the fact that I don't worry about the issue while shooting. I just make sure all the walls are straight during editing.

Why so many Falling Walls ?

Has anyone noticed how crooked houses are being built these days? This photo is a $460,000 home directly off the NWMLS. Many interiors look the same. They look like they will fall down any minute.

There are two solutions to this problem builders are having making walls straight: 1. You can hold your camera crooked so the walls will look straight or 2. You can use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to stretch the top or bottom of the photo to make it look straight.

Seriously, to me the falling wall look is not attractive in marketing photos. My standard for what home exterior and interior photos should look like is Architectual Digest. In Architectual Digest the walls are always perfectly straight and parallel with the edge of the photo. Maybe the building quality is better for the upper-end homes they feature in Architectual Digest.

6 steps to shooting Great Interior Photos

There are six aspects for steps to shooting great interior marketing photos. The steps are:

1. Use a camera with a wide-angle lens– at least 24mm, better down to 15mm
2. Use a external flash or at tripod.
3. Get a copy of Photoshop Elements and learn how to use it
4. Thinking about what you are doing while onsite shooting photos
5. Learn how to fix the common interior problems with Photoshop Elements
6. Learn how to use Virtual tours

These are actually the chapter titles of the book I'm writing on this subject. The book goes into detail on all of these areas.

Cameras for Interiors

The question I get asked the most by other Real Estate Agents is what camera to use. My criteria for choosing a camera to shoot interiors is:

1. You must have a wide-angle lens at least 24mm
2. The camera must control an external flash unit

These criteria mean there are very few compact digital cameras that are usable for shooting interiors and even with a Digital SLR camera there are very few configurations that work well. I've been compiling a list of cameras, lenses and external flashes that fit my criteria.