So, I have found out that the true size one should use when resizing pictures to the Denver Area Metrolist is 640 pixels wide x 480 pixels high. It might not look 100% correct on www.recolorado.com, but it will on all other sites.
It sure makes life easier, in that you can just resize your photo to 640 pixels wide and the height does not have to be cropped – as I had previously stated in a blog post last August.
Have you ever been photographing a home and the clouds are right behind the home and there is no spot of blue in the picture? It can be so frustrating especially if it is a great day and there is blue in the sky around and the sun is shining on the house.
I have a solution – though it takes longer than the quick fix in Photoshop Elements 7.0 – which I am not convinced works very well, at least for my purpose. I have tried the quick fix for skies, but have found two problems. 1. The blue that is inserts is a weird blue, especially for Colorado skies. 2. If there is no grey or color in the clouds it doesn’t add any color.
The process, I recommend, can take a little while in Photoshop especially if there is a tree or other vegetation that is above the roof line of the home. I think it is well worth the time to get it looking right.
First, take a few pictures of the blue sky around the area that day. Make sure to include clouds – it will be more convincing when incorporated into the picture of the home.
I have tried to keep up with this blog, but the last few weeks have been packed with jobs. I am not complaining at all, it’s been great!
Periodically, I call Metrolist to find out if I am sizing the photos properly – It had been 448 pixels x 290 pixels. This time I was told 640 pixels x 480 pixels – which I was pretty sure was not the same proportions as what I had been using. So, I did a test. I uploaded a photo that was 64ox480 and then proceeded to look at it on the mls. It was distorted – the photo had been stretched to the elogated rectangle on the site.
I went back to the drawing board…and thought if the old proportions still worked, but we could upload a larger photo – I would try that. In order to figure the proportions using 640 as my width. I went to google and found http://www.scriptygoddess.com/resources/proportioncalc.htm – I could type in the old proportions and one new proportion and it would give me the other side. Turns out it is 640×415 pixels.
I tried the new size and presto, it worked.
My goal is to make sure we see the best photos out there for real estate. If Realtors® and their assistants don’t know the correct proportions, their photos are never going to look right to the public. So, what do we do?
One of the Realtors® that took a photography class of mine called today to ask about how I put a vertical image into a horizontal frame. Sometimes you just want to show a great feature that can only be captured vertically. Here in the Denver area the multi listing requires all photos be entered as a horizontal image that is 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels high. If you upload a vertical picture it will be stretched to fit the frame like this:
So to make your photo look like the image below I will list the step by step instructions using Photoshop Elements 7.0. The same instructions should apply for all versions of Photoshop Elements since 3.0.
grape imaging, ltd. 