Take Better Photographs of Your House in a Snap

Lorraine Love the tips - thanks!

Vanessa Donley So what would you recommend for rooms that do not have natural light? Bathrooms and rooms without windows are very hard to light.

Jennifer Bishop Design Great story and tips. And your "well hello there" cracked me up!

Lauren Donaldson Rooms without windows are very tricky to photograph. I'd recommend opening up the door and trying to get light in that way if possible (maybe some light can stream in from the hallway or adjacent room). If you need to bring in a light source, I would try and shoot with the light source behind me to avoid catching glare and creating blown-out spots in your photographs. The goals is to diffuse the light and make it feel natural. Maybe bring in some work lights, pointing them away from your scene and toward a foamcore board or large, white posterboard. The light will hopefully bounce off the white surface and brighten up your scene.

Also, if you have a dSLR camera, you can adjust your ISO setting that is usually under the camera's menu. Set it to 800 or higher. The higher the setting, the more sensitive your camera will be to light and your pictures will appear brighter.

Jennifer Bishop Design When I photograph my bathrooms, some Photoshopping afterwards is always needed. Many times the lighting will come off so weird or yellow that color adjustments are necessary. A tripod with long exposure can also help in those types of rooms.

Decorating Den Interiors - Deborah Bettcher As a designer I often find that the process of capturing my rooms with a camera often helps me to improve the space. It's helped me to realize dark areas and add light or dull areas and add reflective elements or color...This is what happened in the course of designing my porch for a recent showhouse.

Judy I enjoy following real estate and when I see some of the pictures for homes-for-sale I cringe. Dark, cluttered, out of focus - yikes!! - who'd be interested in seeing them?? This ideabook should be mandatory..or at least recommended reading for someone trying to sell a house.

Sauveteur If you have a stainless steel sink and lights hanging near it then lay a dark towel or piece of dark paper in the bottom of the sink or you will get a reflection on the wall as in these photos. And take a lot of photos so you can choose the best.

robkat I probably took 100's of photos in preparation for selling my house last year. I took them in different light, at different angles, and with different furniture arrangements. In the end, I had to choose 12. My plan was to market online, so the photos were important. One inexpensive product that helped with lighting was GE Reveal light bulbs. The colors were truer and the rooms looked lighter and bigger. Be warned, that they do "reveal," so if your walls need work or your house isn't sparkly clean, this will be highlighted, too. Another easy trick is to cover your flash with a white plastic film canister or even some white paper. It helps diffuse the light a little. For small rooms, try standing outside the room and placing the camera just by the door frame for the largest angle. Also, I thought the morning light was the clearest and least glaring. By the way, after a lot of hard work and a little luck, my house sold in 3 weeks.

tsudhonimh Halogen work lights! Cheap, usually found in the garage, and cast almost daylight quality light. Bounce the light from them off the ceiling.

avracin When you look closely at these very nice photos, you should take notice that ALL the verticals are straight and paralell. Two ways to achieve this using a wide angle lens: Use a level on your camera! And/or use Photoshop (or similar program) to correct the skewed verticals that you will always get when shooting wide-angle.
Have fun!

patscats2 Great tips.

davidahn It's nearly impossible in a daytime indoor shot to get the window scene (outdoors) and the room scene to both look good in the same shot because even reflected outdoor sunlight is so much brighter than artificial light or the little sunlight that bounces around the room. If the window scene looks fab, the room will look super dark. How to even out the light:

1. First, turn on every light in the room to at close the light intensity gap as much as you can.

2. Set the EV to +1 to +2 EV (experiment) to leave the room looking bright, like in the first and last photos in this article. The down side is it will white out the window light.

3. if you really want to show your beautiful landscaping or killer view AND your room (more like your eyes see it), you could use HDR (high dynamic range - some DSLRs have this built into the camera). But take it easy on the HDR effect. DO NOT overdo it; it looks like it's from another planet.

La Maison Chic Excellent article. Good informative information, Thanks

Gracious Style Great tips, and some nice photos!

Ieteke Ruypers Volpini Thank you, Lauren...a helpful ideabook!

pattimay Yikes, I fear I need a new camera!!
Settings, FStops, and Lenses, Oh My!

mwidroe So happy to have a place to start I need to take pictures as my decorator/advisor/artist is in Chicago and I am in ca

Patrick Mitchell You missed two of the, what I consider, most important DON'TS in Architectural Photography. Don't center corners in the shot, use the rule of thirds (99%of the time). Also, Don't hand hold the camera. Tripods can be bought for as little as $20, Set your camera up and use the timer function to avoid any movement. This allows you to use slower f-stops (f/8-f/22) and not revert to setting ISO above 400. It also means slower shutter speeds but you'll find light that you never knew existed. You will also be able to set the camera almost against a wall to get the full use of the wide angle lens in small rooms.This will almost guarantee crisp, clear shots.

TO shoot windowless rooms, set up the camera and use the available light (as above with a tripod). When I shoot bathrooms, I sometimes add a soft box light just above my camera, usually at the door, this way I can increase the light in the room without over exposing the vanity lights. If you don't have this option Move the camera around until the lights are out of frame.

Don't be afraid to play with the cameras settings (ISO, Whitebalance, f-stop, shutter speed, etc.) In this digital age you can shoot and shoot and shoot and just delete the bad ones.

vinomanibala i like your posts.....thank you

TKraft Art & Interiors Great post and photo tips plus excellent tips from the other contributors. Win win.

magdiego Even inexpensive point and shoot cameras often have a manual white balance setting - learning to use it (and it's very easy) can improve the color of your shots tremendously.

Don Duffy Architecture What do you do about vertical lines not being parallel? Thank you for the good tips.

davidahn @Don Duffy, I'm assuming you're referring to the barrel or pincushion distortion of the lens. Adobe Lightroom includes lens correction for most common lenses, but now we're talking at least an entry level DSLR ($600-800 kit), and Lightroom is about $150, though they do have a 30-day trial version you could use.

Don Duffy Architecture I think so.. I will look into adobe. Thank you

Patrick Mitchell Perspective distortion is near impossible to correct without a tilt shift lens. They run about $900 and up for DSLR cameras. Not really what non-pros want to put down for a lens. However, Photoshop to the rescue. Open your photo in PS and select the crop tool. I use the grid instead of the Rule-of-thirds as it gives me a better look at what will happen. After you click and drag the tool over the photo a new option appears at the top of the window called Perspective. Select this option and then click and move the top corners of the crop box in until the lines of the building are parallel. Then click the check mark. This will straighten out your photo. I've attached a photo and really overdid the correction, but you can see how they have been corrected.

Don Duffy Architecture Thank you, I need to get up to speed on software. I take lots of construction shots with my briefcase camera.. I just watched a you tube on Adobe Lightbox 4. It had just what I need.
I will look at PS.

dianamontje LOVE. LOVE. THE. TIPS.

Pauline P Really wonderful tips Thank you for posting them!