Have you ever tried to take a photo of narrow living rooms, a dark bedroom or even a small bathroom? It would be really difficult to make homebuyers to take notice of the home you’re selling when the photo itself fails to attract them. So put your worries away as these tips can help you make good real estate photos better, even if you’re not a professional photographer.

1. Clean the clutter first: Take the time to do this in every room, it makes a big difference. Nobody wants to have their photo taken when they aren’t in their best look, right? It goes the same with the house!, A clean, fresh-looking and mess-free room will definitely make a small room look brighter and bigger.
2. Look for the most flattering angle: Go around the room and try to find the angle which you think will capture the whole room. Take shots from all the angles of the room. We have modern cameras (link to photography site) now so don’t be afraid to take all the shots that you can. Besides, you can decide later which shot is the best.
3. Use a tripod: Sometimes hand-held cameras can ruin your photos. It can look tilted or inclined upward or downward, even blurry. In order to save time from taking bad & tilted shots, the best solution would be to use a tripod!
4. Go wide: You want to make a small room look bigger right? There are several solutions for it. First, go for the wide angle of your camera. Try using a wider angle lens when shooting small rooms. This can capture the entire room and make it look spacious and more attractive. Second, try to rearrange the furniture. This technique usually never fails because this can give you several options on how to make a room look larger than what it appears to be.
5. Turn on all the lights: They say a good photo is all about the lighting. Oh yes, lighting has a big effect on photos. When taking a good shot of the room, make sure to turn on all the lights (lamps, ceiling lights, appliance lights or even the lights in the adjacent room). Try to make use of all the light that you have because more light will make your photos look better. Lighting elements can actually make or break your photos. So as much as possible try to use natural light and stay away from the direct flash. Direct flashes can reflect off surfaces and can destroy the overall image of your photo. If you can’t avoid using a flash, try to diffuse the light with a simple trick, cover the flash with a piece of toilet paper or a tissue!

Just keep these things in mind and apply them at your next photo shoot. For sure, a wonderful real estate photo collection (link to real estate link) comes a good Real Estate Agent too. Have any tips or ticks of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments or contact us.

An Australian photography company asked 600 Australian real estate agents about how they market properties, and a whopping 99% said nothing beats good photography:

“One responsent commented: “Professional photography is 100% essential to marketing any home, at any price range in any location. I will not put a home on the market without the highest quality photography. It attracts more buyers and therefore a higher sale price for our owners.”

via Photography the top tool for real estate agents – realestate.com.au.

Want to capture each daily moment in a photo without taking out a camera?  The Autographer camera will allow consumers to do just that.

Originally a camera developed by Microsoft that never really took off amongst consumers, the camera tech has been taken over by Oxford Metrics Group to bring the wearable camera to the masses.

According to a recent Fast Company online article: “It’s technically brilliant, using five sensors that discern the best 2,000 moments of your life to capture each day (measuring changes in light, motion, direction, color, and temperature to track activity)”.

You can read the full Fast Company article here:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670901/a-wearable-camera-that-photographs-your-entire-life

Summer is a great time for taking all kinds of great action photos. More time outdoors means more great Full Screen Photo opportunities while at social gatherings, sporting events, and any summer activity where you can capture action photos.

Below are 5 tips for capturing and turning an average action photos into a great action photos.

1 Review your stance:
This will help you keep a shot in your viewfinder as accurately as possible. Keep your shoulders steady and try to only pivot at the hips.

2 Adjust the exposure:
Try slowing the shutter speed to about 1/8 second. This will create a better blurred background while highlighting the subject of the photo. If you go much slower than that, you’ll have trouble freezing the subject.

3. Zoom out:
This will allow you to capture the context of the shot, while not zooming too closely to see the bluriness of the subject.

4. Practice your follow-through:
Be sure to gentlely press the shutter, and continue to pivot with the motion of the photo even after the subject is out of the view finder. This will take some timing and practice.

5. Try selective sharpening:
Of course, a little photo editing never hurts make a photo even better. Try to add only sharpening effect to the subject when necessary, and not the entire picture.

To read more detail about these tips, check out this article from PC World.

Facebook just announced Thursday, March 22nd, that its new photo viewing feature will allow pictures to viewed in full-screen mode and high-resolution.

This is Facebook’s best improvement to their photo capabilities, yet still has some limitations.  The full-screen photo feature is only available on Google Chrome and the latest version of Firefox.  Users can click the small arrow in the upper right hand corner to view the full-screen photos.

There’s obviously a growing demand for web users to view photos in truly high resolution, full-screen mode that we at FullScreenPhotos.com are all too familiar with.

Why settle for a small thumbnail that sacrifices photo quality?  Most photos allow click-to-enlarge functionality, but are only enlarged in the browser window and not in true full-screen mode.  Kudos to Facebook for a step in the right direction.

For more info about the announcement check out this article from Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2012/03/22/facebook-high-resolution/

Last month Wendy Lea had a nice post for Inc. Magazine on the power of customer first impressions online titled “Fix Your First Impression”.

She noted “first impressions are the first place you meet customers online….are you looking your best?” and highlighted several ways to best manage customer relationships for a lasting customer relationship.

But before developing a lasting customer relationship, how do you make a clear and impactful first impression on potential customers from your very first interaction with them online?

It has to do with a combination of factors, but obviously effective use of photos coupled with seamless web design plays a major part.

One of our FullScreenPhotos.com users sums up the importance of first impression in her business as follows, and how FullScreenPhotos.com has helped her put her best first impression (and best photos) forward online:

Before deciding on a marketing product, I always compare the value verses the investment. I use fullscreenphotos religiously for two main reasons: the value of the impact of a positive first impression and the small amount of time and money I invest to get the successful results.

The First impression, in any business or personal situation is the most important as it sets the tone for the rest of the relationship or transaction. I’m a top producing real estate agent in a suburban area where the home sales are not as high as some of the other parts of the country.

Even in lower price ranges, the first impression a buyer has of a home is the most important and should be taken seriously. When buying a home, a buyer’s ‘first impression’ is usually the online photos I feel displaying professional quality photos of my properties is crucial in generating the most phone calls, emails and showings of a property essentially resulting in a fast and profitable sale for my client.

I invest a significant amount in my photographer and fullscreenphotos has provided a medium to display the high quality presentation photos that place me and my properties above other agents and competing properties.

Time is also something I don’t have much of as a working mother, so the fact the fullscreenphotos is so easy and fast to produce is another other key reason I enjoy using this service. It is easy to share and doesn’t take up memory space for prospective clients I chose to send the link to.

The best part is the cost at $5/month, unlimited! I can say with great confidence, it has generated quick sales at higher prices that make the investment of $5/month a no-brainer. I use fullscreenphotos for all my listings from $1,000 rentals to $1,000,000 sales because there is NEVER a reason to not spend $5 on a listing if it means it will present itself that much better and be that much easier for a propspect to enjoy.

Special thanks to our user Layla for sharing her insights and feedback with us! Here are just a few examples of her great online listings and FullScreenPhotos.com slideshows:

http://fullscreenphotos.com/aee22
http://fullscreenphotos.com/acfa0
http://fullscreenphotos.com/a0fff
http://fullscreenphotos.com/aee26

FullScreenPhotos.com allows for the most effective full screen slideshow creation and photo sharing online.

Whether you’re creating a full screen slide show for personal use or to promote your business, FullScreenPhotos.com provides the simplest and most effective way to share via all the major social platforms.

Once a FullScreenPhotos.com user creates a slideshow and clicks “I’m done” on the Get Launch Code page, a “Care to Share” dialogue box pops up to allow a user to easily send and share a full screen slideshow with one click.

A user can easily send to any of the major social network such as Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, or StumbleUpon.  This is an effective to share a full screen photo slideshow for people in your social network, and to drive additional social media traffic to your blog, website, facebook page, or twitter account.

For example, sharing Full Screen Photo slideshows to StumbleUpon (and Su.pr) is a great way to drive additional traffic to your social media initiatives that you might not otherwise get organically.

Tim Ferriss gives a great video overview of social media strategy using StumbleUpon and Su.Pr on his blog: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/09/stumble-upon-supr/

Get more traffic in less time, and show off your full screen photo slide shows to your family and friends, with our “Care to Share” feature.

If you’re a real estate broker using FullScreenPhotos.com, you can create effective virtual tours on REALTOR.com listings easily from your FullScreenPhotos.com account.

As mentioned in our post More Effective Real Estate Listings, users can easily share their FullScreenPhotos.com slideshows on their REALTOR.com® listings for free, as long as they utilize the showcase listing feature on REALTOR.com.

Agents simply upload photos to FullScreenPhotos.com, input their REALTOR.com Multi Listing Service I.D. and property information, and the photos are automatically added as a virtual tour on REALTOR.com within the hour.

For a live example of a virtual tour by a FullScreenPhotos.com user, visit this Realtor.com listing and click on the “tour” link as shown in the picture below.