3 questions to ask before outsourcing to photo editing services
In the real estate industry, estate agents work with professional property photographers to make sure that their property listings look fantastic, as listed properties with professional photographs are viewed 61% more than other properties listed at a similar price. However, it’s not only that a professional image is taken to ensure an impressive result, the photo editing process is a crucial stage to transform a good image into a great one.
A few months ago, we spoke to a group of property photographers to gather data for our market research. We asked whether they edited their own photos or outsourced them and the answers varied; several photographers edit their own photos, but many found photo editing a long process that restricts them from doing what they love most - taking photos. These photographers outsource their images to human photo editors.
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet. - William Gibson (writer).
In this blog, we’ll consider three questions to ask before outsourcing photo editing services.
How much does it cost to outsource photo editing services?
This is likely the first question asked by a busy property photographer when seeking to outsource photo editing services. Human photo editors will charge from £1-3 per image enhancement depending on the outsourcer. So, when outsourcing to human photo editors, it’s worth considering the budget for these costs. If these outsourcing costs seem expensive, it’s worth checking out the available automated photo editing softwares, for example, Luminar AI is an automated version of Photoshop, which can replace a sky, increase image saturation and brighten a photo. It still requires a photographer’s input to achieve the desired results, but the cost of this programme is a one-off payment that starts from £79. Meanwhile, Autoenhance.ai is a photo enhancer powered by artificial intelligence (AI), which enhances both exterior and interior property images automatically in seconds. The only effort required from a photographer is uploading the images to the web interface or via the API. And the cost? It’s free to use!
How long does it take to edit a photo?
A typical workday for a professional property photographer involves shooting in the morning and editing in the afternoon and evening. The images may be enhanced within a day, however, the photographer would have spent half a day editing, thereby losing out on additional shooting opportunities. The photographers we spoke with recognised that outsourcing photo editing services gave them more free time. Yet, when it came to outsourcing to human photo editors, the photographers all said the same thing: the turnaround time was too long to meet the competitive demands of the real estate market. Waiting times to receive enhanced images can take up to 48 hours. Meanwhile, using automated photo editing services allows real estate companies to get ahead of the competition and increase property sales. Remove.bg is an editing tool that removes an image background. It’s a useful tool for UK based photographers who’re constantly having to replace the sky on exterior property images due to frequent overcast British weather. Photographers using Remove.bg can instantly remove an image background, download the image and add a beautiful blue sky background using Photoshop. For an even quicker sky replacement process, photographers can use Autoenhance.ai to instantly replace grey skies with blue, and making the image seem like it was shot on the best day of summer.
Is an outsourced image enhancement high-quality?
Professional property photographers take good quality images but the editing process is crucial to transform the image into a fantastic one. High quality property photos increase a property selling price by 1-2%. A human photo editor will be able to recognise the features that require improvement, from perspective correction to image resolution, and tweak the image until it’s ready for listing. This is a time-consuming process. Meanwhile, automated photo editing will also improve image quality. Let’s Enhance is a programme that automatically improves image resolution and is a great solution for amateur photographers, such as real estate agents (who’re increasingly taking property images). Additionally, Autoenhance.ai has three core features to improve image quality - sky replacement, perspective correction and relighting. An image with the correct perspective attracts viewers and guides the eye around the image. When a property image is brightened, the result makes observers feel relaxed.
Find out more about automated photo editing softwares in one of our previous blog posts.
