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Tips to make my photos look like this....


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AvrilInSydney

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Hi everyone, does anyone in this helpful community have any tricks to enhance photos so they get that professional look. I want to rent my house and would love to make my photos look like this on the net. Attaching a sample of what I think is a nicely retouched image with a lovely light airy look, I just dont know how to duplicate. Is there a standard 'recipe' anyone uses to post process> Thanks in advance, and please note the attached shot is not mine, just one I pasted from a realtors site, cheers, Avril
 
What type of camera do you have? That photo, to me, doesn't look retouched as much as it's just a sharp photograph with good lighting.

Off Topic, when I saw that photo, it reminded me of that old joke running around the web where you are studying the picture and a monster pops up screaming and scares the beejeezus out of you. :bustagut:
 
Maybe a quick levels or curves adjustment was done, but what you see in this shot is mostly the result of descent lighting in combination with a bright colored interior (important factor) and a quality camera. ;)

Don't forget the mirrors either; they reflect the light even more than the bright walls.
 
Thanks everyone...

Sheba, I have an olympus 5060 and its never taken anything close to that nice quality in the pic I posted. Thanks for all your input, was kind of sort of hoping there was some magic method of giving images that beautiful light-but you're right, it must have been naturally well lit. I will play around further with curves maybe I am too light handed with it. Have anice weekend to all, Avril
 
Hi,

did you notice that all the lights are on and that the light from the outside is not too bright?

I've done a lot of room photography and my advice is, that you watch out for the light. Take the photo at that time of the day when outside and inside light match and turn on every lamp in the room. You might also need a wide angle lens to capture a whole room like that.

In case of brightness problems, try underexposing the image and then correct that in PS. This introduces a lot of noise into the picture, so the result is only OK for web use and you will need a noise filter plugin like "Neat image" (the standalone jpg version comes free for personal use)
 
follow up

As a followup: There is a lot you can do, however:

I'm currently working at this panoramic room shot (so don't be distracted by the lens distortion) for a java applet.

Here the original image is way too dark and adjusting the tones gives you a yellowish result which is totally unusuable.

If you put a selective color corrections mask on the picture and remove the yellow where you don't want it the result is not too bad.

See example. The first image is how the camera produced it. I shot the picture like this on purpose, otherwise the lamps would all have been overexposed. Picture two is after the correction, Picture three has yellow and some red removed from wall and floor.
 
I used to be an advertising product photographer back in Atlanta. That bedroom image was shot with a wide angle lens on a 4X5 view camera (with a tilt and swing lens and film board). Those controls are used to keep vertical lines vertical and to control depth of field.

The photographer also used as many as four high powered strobe lights. One angled up and in the opposite direction the camera is facing to bounce off the ceiling and fill the room with light. The others were used for fill flash to get rid of shadows. It was also more than likely double exposed. One exposure to get the windows exposed correctly and the second exposure to capture the room itself.

That is over simplified but will give you an idea of what goes into interior architectural photography. In some difficult commercial interiors you can have as many as eight or nine exposures on one sheet of film. One for incandescent lighting, one for fluorescent lights, one for exterior windows, one for fireplace fires or candles etc. All the different exposures are needed as all those lights have different intensity and color temperature. To make all the different types of lighting look "normal" a different lens filter was added to each exposure correct for the different color temperatures.

Here is an image I did of the Atlanta skyline for a client many years ago. I have since changed it from the original when I learned to use Photoshop. I knocked out the sky and added a different "bronze" colored sunset to match the color of the buildings.
 
Far out Lee! That was the mother of all definitive answers. :righton: :bustagut:

(Not to mention the Photoshop job you did on that skyline is fabulous. Until I read your description I was sure it was generated with a 3D program and placed against a dramatic photograph of a sunset sky.)
 
Thanks Bchow and Lee

Hmm, no wonder my photos dont look quite like that one-Im just using a camera with no extra lighting - taking different exposures sounds promising though. Thanks for the in depth reply, and thanks also Bchow, was also interested in the layer masking technique. By the way, Lee, stunning skyline shot - do you recall what post processing you did in PS - how did you get the building so sharp yet kind of smooth? Bye all, have a lovely weekend! Avi
 
If you camera supports additionnal flashes, you may lok into joining a photography club, and ask to be educated on proper lighting.

The club might have lights to rent, or you might find a shop that allows you to test them out...
 
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