Basic Image Editing Applications for Real Estate
Nick Bostic | March 27, 2008Sometimes, having grown up with technology, I overlook the obvious. This time, it was a need for a basic image editing tool for all of those real estate photographs.
Not Photoshop
I grew up with Adobe products, so Photoshop comes pretty naturally to me. Put someone who has never used it to work, and they will typically become rather frustrated. Also, the nearly $700 suggested retail can be a bit much. So Adobe Photoshop is out.
What does “basic” mean
My definition of basic is derived from the many real estate professionals I’ve worked with as well as the sales team I work with in my day job. Basic is defined as:
- Free
- Easy to use
- Image resize capabilities
- Simple color/lighting touch up
- And Free
Although Adobe just released their Photoshop Express online tool today, after playing for about half an hour, I couldn’t find a resize function. Crop yes, resize no. If it’s there, it’s too difficult for most of the people I know to find it, so it’s out.
Online use
If you’re online, I thoroughly enjoy using Picnik. It meets all of the qualifications and then some. Play around with it, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I’ll be putting together a brief tutorial on how to use it soon. They offer a paid version, which gives some enhanced photo editing capabilities, but the best feature for me of the paid version is a full screen view without the ads. And it’s less than $25 a year.
The only real downside for basic real estate photo editing is that it is an online product, so if you aren’t online or have a really slow connection, this won’t be the best program for you.
Offline use
If you know me, you’ll know I’m a fan of Google. They have an offline photo editing and cataloging program called Picasa. Again, it meets all of the qualifications I set for a basic real estate picture editing program. Editing is fast and easy, but knowing how to resize isn’t quite as intuitive as it should be.
On the toolbar below your picture, you should see this:
If you click on the “Export” button on the far right, that’s where you can resize the image.
Even with Vista’s superb file search capabilities, I still recommend Picasa for cataloging and quickly viewing your photos. I have several thousand photos on my home computer and Picasa makes it relatively easy and painless to find and preview my entire collection.
UPDATE: For those of us who like Picasa for viewing and sorting our images, but prefer Photoshop for editing, you can now add a button to Picasa to directly open your image in Photoshop.
If you’re using anything else, please mention it in the comments below so I can check it out.
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Just announced! Adobe has a free online version of Photoshop called Express.
http://www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html
It’s a bit like Picnik, but I find it frustratingly simplistic compared even to Photoshop CS, which I use at work. Of course, there’s always the Gimp, the free open-source photo editor, but that’s a real bear to learn.
[...] Original post by nickb [...]
I found your blog on MSN Search. Nice writing. I will check back to read more.
Eric Hundin
I wrote a review of Photoshop Express on Brainious. You are correct that it cannot resize images. However, if you download the image back to your computer you can choose from three different widths. On of them is 256 pixels. a band aide of sorts.
I checked out Photoshop Express this morning. Unless you just need to adjust brightness/contrast, resize the image or change colors, it’s pretty worthless.
I use “paint.net”. It has all the basics, plus some of the advanced features of photoshop that come in handy on a daily basis. It’s a free download, and actually runs pretty quick/smooth on our work machines, which are by no means graphic stations (or even remotely close to it).
You forgot The GIMP. It’s an Open Source, free, Photoshop clone. See http://www.gimp.org for details and downloads. Works on Linux, Windows, and Mac.
- James
Ben - I’ve been playing with Express much of the day and I agree, it is frustratingly simplistic. I like the GIMP and CS3, but I realize that most of the people I work with don’t have the time or patience for those programs.
Jeff - Thanks for the lead on paint.net (www.getpaint.net). The feature set looks great. It’s installing now, so there may be a follow up to this post.
James - I use the GIMP (along with Photoshop, Fireworks, Picnik, Photoshop Express, A.viary…), but it’s not what I consider intuitive. I enjoy just sitting down and playing with my pictures, but most of the people I deal with want to get it, resize, touch up colors and get out. So although the GIMP is great software, it doesn’t make my list for basic image editing.
Nick, I couldn’t agree more. And it’s funny… I used Photoshop in GD school in 2001, and periodically since for small projects, but there are still times when I want something super simple. Thanks for the tip. I’ll check out Picnik, and I love Picasa!