Unnatural angles = bad real estate photography.

Are they perfectly straight up and down, or do they appear angular, as if they would intersect each other if followed beyond the edges of the photo?  This effect happens when the photographer shoots at a slight angle either up or down.  It is best to shoot the camera straight to get the straightest verticals possible, but sometimes it is necessary to tilt in order to get a better composition.

Just Edit >> Transform it!

To fix verticals in Photoshop, get familiar with the Rotate, Perspective, Distort, and Skew functions all found under the Edit >> Transform menu.    Scott Hargis, an excellent real estate photographer in the San Fransisco Bay area, recently created a detailed video tutorial describing how to fix verticals in Photoshop using the Transform tools. (Watch the video below)

Scott Hargis:  How to Fix Verticals (the video):

Why care about verticals?  Because it makes a photo look more natural.   Larry Lorhman describes in his post regarding verticals below:

First of all, why are verticals even a big deal? The problem comes from the fact that we all live in an environment that as perfectly vertical walls. Try walking into some building that has a wall out of plumb. You’ll have a problem even finding a building that doesn’t have vertical walls, but if you could find one, imagine how it would feel; disorienting to say the least.

Because we live in this vertical world, where gravity defines up and down and vertical defines the direction gravity is pulling, we all have this built-in hyper-sensitivity to vertical. If we walk into a building with the verticals off or look at photo where the verticals are off we feel a tension or uneasiness. It’s an unconscious warning in our head that says, “something is wrong here”. As a real estate photographer you want to keep verticals perfectly parallel with the edge of the photo so this tension is eliminated and doesn’t distract from your main message. – PFRE

Straightening verticals on an interior or exterior architectural photo is one of the most important steps you can take in post-production.  Be sure to use your Edit >> Transform, Distort, Perspective and Skew tools along with your

The listing photo can go a long way in gaining more traffic (online and in foot) to a listing.  Agents who opt not to hire a professional photographer should study the basics of good real estate photography, and invest a little into a decent camera and photo editing software.

In the article, Fletcher expresses her dissatisfaction with the quality of MLS images, and offers a few basic staging tips.

Since nine out of 10 home shoppers begin their search on the Web, according to the National Association of Realtors, I’m appalled that some sellers don’t make much of an effort to make their houses presentable and visually appealing. After all, listing pictures are your main mode of advertising. If the pictures are poor quality, or don’t show every room of your house, as well as front and back views both of and from the house, many buyers won’t bother to visit.

Of course, in these tight times, many sellers don’t want to spend upwards of $1,000 a day to hire a good architectural photographer (unless the house is worth millions). Instead, they rely on their agents to take the photos, which are usually taken hastily with a handheld digital camera. And since agents aren’t required to take photography courses to get a real estate license, it’s not surprising that the results are often poorly framed and lit, grainy and washed out.