Using Light to Enhance Your Listing Photos

When it comes to taking great interior images for your listings, it’s not always about how expensive your equipment is or how fancy your furniture looks. A little bit of lighting can go a long way to make your property stand out.

Professional camera flash and lighting equipment can quickly become expensive and difficult to use for someone who is just trying to showcase their space quickly and effectively. Luckily, there are some simple and easy tricks and best practices—like optimizing warm exterior window light or lamps— that can really make a difference in how you advertise commercial space and attract viewers to your listing.

Use Natural Lighting to Work Smarter, Not Harder

Using natural lighting is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to make your interiors pop! However, harsh window light can not only over expose the room you’re trying to showcase but also make your interior look unappealing. The key to using outdoor lighting with windows is photographing your space at a time of day when direct sunlight isn’t coming straight into the room. If there are blinds in the room make sure to adjust them; do not pull the blinds completely open to expose the window itself. Doing so can look unappealing. Here’s an example of how window light can enhance your image:

This was shot at a time of day when the sun was going down. The room appears dark due to the lack of light coming in from the window.

In this shot the window light is coming through the open blinds and appears overpowering, making the room look over-exposed and harsh.

The final image was shot with no direct sunlight coming into the room. The time of day was not in the late afternoon like the first photo. The exterior light gives off a blue tint, was color corrected using Adobe Lightroom.

It’s all about exposure; a lot of the time when we’re quickly uploading images of a space, it's easy to use a cellphone to snap a few shots. A cellphone flash has a tendency to add unnecessary shadows and can really flatten your image. Try your best to avoid using your cellphone flash unless your natural or interior light is minimal.

Light it Up
Something as easy as utilizing same color light bulbs throughout the space can really help with color correction. You want to avoid harsh dark yellow light bulbs and stay between a 3000K to 3500K bulb. These bulbs are considered a warm white light which will not appear too yellow or blue in photographs. It's best to use these bulbs in both installed fixtures as well as floor or desk lamps so that the color is neutral throughout.

Here you can see how the wall lights and the overhead lights are all different shades. When your cellphone or camera tries to auto color-correct the image, it usually ends up making the more yellow lights a deeper yellow, creating an unappealing glow.

Here all the bulbs were replaced with a 3500K bulb making the image color look natural throughout the space. The room now looks bright and welcoming.

About the Author: Holly Routzohn
Holly is a CoStar field research photographer based in Ohio.