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Personally I'm tired of the HDR-ification of everything. House listings? It's like realtors figured out what HDR was and went NUTS. Those images are like the

Personally I'm tired of the HDR-ification of everything. House listings? It's like realtors figured out what HDR was and went NUTS. Those images are like the comic sans of photography.

asdff 5y ago
It's even better when they throw on HDR for one of those faux Mediterranean houses built with the fit and finish of an Olive Garden. It's like a tell to stay away, someone who worshiped Camilla Soprano's kitchen once owned this home.
brimble 5y ago
I've seen them add light fixtures to photos. Like, the light fixtures do not exist in the actual house. Not a lamp, something connected to the house. The way they're going, that industry's gonna get a regulatory smack-down at some point.
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  UGH! Is that what virtual staging is going to next, straight up lies? It's one thing to use a fake couch, but a fake fixture is not acceptable.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  Here in New York I've seen listings use extremely bright, daylight-emulating lights to make rooms appear "sun-drenched" when their only window faces another building, and remain dim year-round. I even saw this on a video walkthrough of an apartment – they clearly had placed the lights right outside the window. Finding a place to live is challenging.
- Arrath 5y ago
  I recently saw a listing where badly inserted trees and piles of rocks were littered around the back yard, maybe to hide crap the owner hadn't bothered to clean up? Not sure, but it was obvious.
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  We sold a place last year. The agent asked whether we wanted to pay for rental furniture or virtual furniture for the pics. We said neither. We ended up with the virtual furniture for free. I think they wanted to figure out how it works and our place was small and boxy so an easy starting point. Not that you could trust the ultrawide angle HDR photos much in the first place, now you have to put up with shoddily inserted virtual furniture wrecking your size/perspective references. It is an Alice in Wonderland trip...
asiachick 5y ago
Going to respectfully disagree, though maybe we are referring to different images. When I look at images on Redfin, it's clear someone either used HDR or manually edited in the scenes outside the window. To me, this looks like what my eyes would see when in the room vs what the camera itself would show which would either be blown out views outside the windows or the room too dark. Random example: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404/unit-2/home/6763264 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404...
- gruez 5y ago
  >To me, this looks like what my eyes would see when in the room vs what the camera itself would show which would either be blown out views outside the windows or the room too dark. >Random example: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404... Honestly it's hard to tell without a reference picture. Looking at the first picture, it seems reasonable that the living room would be well lit because of huge windows. However, the section with the tall houseplants look nearly as bright as the open living room area, which seems doubtful.
  - novok 5y ago
    The first picture where the walls are bright white would have the windows look like a bright glowing rectangle vs. being able to see the outdoors through the window if they didn't use HDR. They overexposed the interior a little bit, which means the outdoors would especially look like bright white rectangles. Even when you have a lot of windows the indoors is significantly dimmer than the outdoors on sunny days unless the room is a greenhouse. They did the HDR so well that you couldn't tell it was HDR. Artificial HDR is a choice, just like natural HDR is in that photo. In pictures 8 and 9 they didn't HDR, so the windows look like white rectangles and very overexposed. In picture 17 they did the HDR treatment on the horizontal windows, but did not on the skylights. Those skylights should show up as blue vs. white rectangles if they were doing the HDR treatment on the entire photo, etc. I think they also use off camera flash and bounced it off the ceiling, which is why I think it looks kind of glowy-white with all the white walls and floors in that place.
mikestew 5y ago
That, and the "realtor lens". Driveways suddenly become 50% longer. TVs are 3 meters long and .75 meters tall. That bedroom looks like a long, narrow jail cell (well, not in real life; such is the unintended consequence of misrepresentation). We all know what you're doing, few (if any) are fooled, just take the shot as it is or just leave it out, since that photo might as well be a picture of the Eiffel Tower for all of its lack of usefulness in representing the house.
dylan604 5y ago
That's how HDR was originally. Everyone used it to the Xtreme++!! Everything looked post-apocolyptic instead of just rolling the highlights back to proper exposure and pulling details out of the shadows. It's perfectly fine to shoot HDR without going nuts, but very few people choose to do it that way.
- astrange 5y ago
  Probably shouldn't call it shooting HDR (even though they do it) - you're doing the exact opposite, you're converting HDR into SDR and so it looks overly tone mapped as as a result. A proper HDR photo should blind you when viewed on an HDR display, which are kinda expensive when they're desktop sized.

Personally I'm tired of the HDR-ification of everything. House listings? It's like realtors figured out what HDR was and went NUTS. Those images are like the comic sans of photography.

asdff 5y ago

It's even better when they throw on HDR for one of those faux Mediterranean houses built with the fit and finish of an Olive Garden. It's like a tell to stay away, someone who worshiped Camilla Soprano's kitchen once owned this home.

brimble 5y ago

I've seen them add light fixtures to photos. Like, the light fixtures do not exist in the actual house. Not a lamp, something connected to the house. The way they're going, that industry's gonna get a regulatory smack-down at some point.

lkxijlewlf 5y ago
UGH! Is that what virtual staging is going to next, straight up lies? It's one thing to use a fake couch, but a fake fixture is not acceptable.
lelandfe 5y ago
Here in New York I've seen listings use extremely bright, daylight-emulating lights to make rooms appear "sun-drenched" when their only window faces another building, and remain dim year-round. I even saw this on a video walkthrough of an apartment – they clearly had placed the lights right outside the window. Finding a place to live is challenging.
Arrath 5y ago
I recently saw a listing where badly inserted trees and piles of rocks were littered around the back yard, maybe to hide crap the owner hadn't bothered to clean up? Not sure, but it was obvious.
_carbyau_ 5y ago
We sold a place last year. The agent asked whether we wanted to pay for rental furniture or virtual furniture for the pics. We said neither. We ended up with the virtual furniture for free. I think they wanted to figure out how it works and our place was small and boxy so an easy starting point. Not that you could trust the ultrawide angle HDR photos much in the first place, now you have to put up with shoddily inserted virtual furniture wrecking your size/perspective references. It is an Alice in Wonderland trip...

asiachick 5y ago

Going to respectfully disagree, though maybe we are referring to different images. When I look at images on Redfin, it's clear someone either used HDR or manually edited in the scenes outside the window. To me, this looks like what my eyes would see when in the room vs what the camera itself would show which would either be blown out views outside the windows or the room too dark. Random example: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404/unit-2/home/6763264 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404...

gruez 5y ago
>To me, this looks like what my eyes would see when in the room vs what the camera itself would show which would either be blown out views outside the windows or the room too dark. >Random example: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404 https://www.redfin.com/CA/Santa-Monica/1319-Harvard-St-90404... Honestly it's hard to tell without a reference picture. Looking at the first picture, it seems reasonable that the living room would be well lit because of huge windows. However, the section with the tall houseplants look nearly as bright as the open living room area, which seems doubtful.
- novok 5y ago
  The first picture where the walls are bright white would have the windows look like a bright glowing rectangle vs. being able to see the outdoors through the window if they didn't use HDR. They overexposed the interior a little bit, which means the outdoors would especially look like bright white rectangles. Even when you have a lot of windows the indoors is significantly dimmer than the outdoors on sunny days unless the room is a greenhouse. They did the HDR so well that you couldn't tell it was HDR. Artificial HDR is a choice, just like natural HDR is in that photo. In pictures 8 and 9 they didn't HDR, so the windows look like white rectangles and very overexposed. In picture 17 they did the HDR treatment on the horizontal windows, but did not on the skylights. Those skylights should show up as blue vs. white rectangles if they were doing the HDR treatment on the entire photo, etc. I think they also use off camera flash and bounced it off the ceiling, which is why I think it looks kind of glowy-white with all the white walls and floors in that place.

mikestew 5y ago

That, and the "realtor lens". Driveways suddenly become 50% longer. TVs are 3 meters long and .75 meters tall. That bedroom looks like a long, narrow jail cell (well, not in real life; such is the unintended consequence of misrepresentation). We all know what you're doing, few (if any) are fooled, just take the shot as it is or just leave it out, since that photo might as well be a picture of the Eiffel Tower for all of its lack of usefulness in representing the house.

dylan604 5y ago

That's how HDR was originally. Everyone used it to the Xtreme++!! Everything looked post-apocolyptic instead of just rolling the highlights back to proper exposure and pulling details out of the shadows. It's perfectly fine to shoot HDR without going nuts, but very few people choose to do it that way.

astrange 5y ago
Probably shouldn't call it shooting HDR (even though they do it) - you're doing the exact opposite, you're converting HDR into SDR and so it looks overly tone mapped as as a result. A proper HDR photo should blind you when viewed on an HDR display, which are kinda expensive when they're desktop sized.