False Advertising, and Sunny Photos
Geek Estate got one visitor the other day from searching for the following term:
how to make photos look sunny in photoshop
You know what? Maybe you should just show a property in it’s real state? If it’s cloudy everyday, maybe you should show the user a photo with clouds. Yea, I get it saves some time (& money) to falsely portray a photo as sunny rather than actually find a sunny day to take the photo in the first place. But so what? Wouldn’t you rather show a buyer the real picture rather than falsely sell them on something?
Oh yea. I forgot…there are many people in this world who don’t care how they make a buck.
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Brandon
Posted at 08:17h, 13 JuneI do this on a regular basis, the reason is that even though the sky may be blissfully blue it will turn out bright white in a photo due to the exposure balancing. Not all Photoshopping is done to mislead.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 15:51h, 13 JuneI’d guess it’s “Often”. But not always.
Mike McGee
Posted at 19:12h, 15 JuneI don’t get the selective outrage. Just about everywhere on this earth has some sunny days and some not so sunny. So if it happens to be not so sunny on the day you’re taking photos it’s somehow deceptive to show what it looks like on a sunny day? Or we should delay putting the home on the market until we get a sunny day?
So you think this is unethical, yet on your post about Zestimate Forecasts you say that accuracy “doesn’t matter”, and that it’s “a smart move in their shoes. Even if it’s gimicky, it will draw consumer eyeballs. Consumer eyeballs will help them make more money.”
So for Zillow, anything that makes them money is smart, but for agents, lightening up a picture is “False Advertising???”
Double-standard?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 19:22h, 15 JuneI’ve had a long week. I think, as with everything it seems, it’s the small minority of people that ruin it for the rest. There are people who sunnify photos wrongly for false advertising..and there are many others who do it for the right reasons.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 19:29h, 15 June“So you think this is unethical, yet on your post about Zestimate Forecasts you say that accuracy “doesn’t matter”, and that it’s “a smart move in their shoes. Even if it’s gimicky, it will draw consumer eyeballs. Consumer eyeballs will help them make more money.”
I do think these are two different scenarios. Any “prediction”, which is what zestimate forecasts, is just that. A prediction. There is no way for anyone to say whether it’s accurate or not (regardless of whether a computer or human makes it) until time passes and the prediction can be compared to what actually happened.
A photo is either sunny, or it’s not.
But, I will concede. It makes business sense for agents to make photos appear sunny. So I get why they do it.
Mike McGee
Posted at 06:21h, 16 JuneMaybe a lightened photo is just a “prediction” of what the house would look like on a sunny day. 😉
Lee
Posted at 04:23h, 17 JuneThen why not shoot the photos at night with all the lights off? It’s that way half the time anyway.
Susi
Posted at 06:15h, 29 Octoberyes