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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 manual

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.
duskwuff 5y ago
> or manually edited in the scenes outside the window This is definitely a thing. A lot of real estate photos are manipulated to replace the content of copyrighted photos and paintings, to hide unsightly views through windows, or to show clear skies when the photographs were taken on a rainy day.
Auracle 5y ago
I did real estates photography for a while. Most real estate photographers use HDR, and the higher end uses off-camera flash (as did I). There’s no nefarious reason behind this - it’s because photos where you can actually see out the windows look better. It’s also more like what your eyes would see rather than a crazy blown out white rectangle. When the house is on a lake you want people to see what the view is like. It was the rooms where I didn’t do that where I was hiding something, like an air conditioning unit being all you could see or whatnot. The stupidly wide lenses most use? Yeah, that‘s deceptive. I also think it looks bad I tried to ride the line on using the tightest lens I could while still showing the room.

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.

duskwuff 5y ago

> or manually edited in the scenes outside the window This is definitely a thing. A lot of real estate photos are manipulated to replace the content of copyrighted photos and paintings, to hide unsightly views through windows, or to show clear skies when the photographs were taken on a rainy day.

Auracle 5y ago

I did real estates photography for a while. Most real estate photographers use HDR, and the higher end uses off-camera flash (as did I). There’s no nefarious reason behind this - it’s because photos where you can actually see out the windows look better. It’s also more like what your eyes would see rather than a crazy blown out white rectangle. When the house is on a lake you want people to see what the view is like. It was the rooms where I didn’t do that where I was hiding something, like an air conditioning unit being all you could see or whatnot. The stupidly wide lenses most use? Yeah, that‘s deceptive. I also think it looks bad I tried to ride the line on using the tightest lens I could while still showing the room.