Do you remember when photographers developed film in a dark room? They needed to control the post production and photo editing process because they were the only ones experienced to do it. When the market shifted from film cameras to digital in the late 1990’s, photo software became the new dark room. Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom led the way in the photo editing software revolution. A plethora of photo editing options exist today, ranging from complex edit capabilities to simple filter selections. Something that was highly specialized has, in some cases, become easy for the average user. Truly revolutionary!
The trick today is identifying the real skill gap. In order to see the gap, you have to know your audience. Less sophisticated audiences may be ok with simple filter edits. Filter edits do not require specialization. Social media moguls have built enterprises on this strategy. More sophisticated audiences, however, demand higher editing standards, and therefore require more specialized talent for the edits.
What we’ve seen is that the end-user site traffic to real estate sites (homeowners, renters, investors, etc.) expect high quality images. Even more, studies have shown that high quality real estate photos have a direct impact on price, whether that is sale or rent. A picture is worth a thousand words after all.