MLS requirements for real estate photography

<p>

<p >I am in the process of establishing a new real estate photography business and I am having trouble with resizing my images for MLS. The agents are telling me that they are too big to upload on MLS but they do not know what size they need to be. I resized them to Fit within W:1000px H:1000px at Quality 12. This gives me images at a range of 1.13 MB to 365 KB. Does anyone shoot real estate that could give me any advice? It would be much appreciated.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Thanks,</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Rocky</p>

</p>

<p>If these are only to viewed on the web. I would make them about 1024x768 with a 72 dpi res. This should be suffient for on screen view with most computers and reduce the size quite a bit. I am not a real estate photographer but this what I have done in the past. Good Luck</p>

<p>Most agents I know shoot with a P/S digitial - as to sizing I'm not sure what they size them down to... only in the very top end agencies will they hire a pro photographer - even then they do all the post and resizing themselves.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>Go onto an MLS web page (you may need a password) or go to a real estate agent's web page, download a few pictures, open them in Photoshop and see what the sizes are. That should give you your answer. If you are getting 1 mb files currently, you are sizing them way, way too large. For my PR work, I typically jpg at quality 8 and end up with a 1 mb file that can print 8x10 at 300 ppi and that's for newspaper and magazine reproduction, not web viewing. I'm guessing your files should be under 100kb, probably well under.</p>

<p>Craig's right. Go to the MLS site that you're trying to shoot for and see for yourself. In my neck of the woods it's 400x300 pixels. You'll also find that to get the most detail (or to retain as much of the view that counts) you'll probably need to crop the files otherwise the MLS will add white to the sides or top and bottom, making your images appear smaller. Keep in mind that those same agents will tell you that when they printed those same 400x300 files that they are kinda fuzzy for some reason. You'll likely wind up sizing for MLS and sizing for 4x6-ish for their fliers that they love to print up. Some agents know a little more about this stuff than the others, but it's a good idea to just create file names ending in "MLS" for the MLS and "Print" for the print worth files. 001_MLS, 002_MLS, etc... You'll want to stress that the MLS files are only for the MLS, and if they try to use those files for their slideshows it will look really "fuzzy", so to use the Print files for everything other than the MLS.</p>

<p>Good luck<br>

Dan</p>

<p>MLS sites are famous for bad photography, and I'd guess that the images you're submitting are of much too high a quality for sue on MLS sites. <br>

To present good photography of a home you need to put them on-line yourself, with a link from an MLS site to your presentation.<br>

I could go on for days (Piss-poor real estate photos are among my many obsessions) but rather than reading the rantings of a slightly crazed old man, you're much better served by going to <a href="http://PhotographyForRealestate.com">http://PhotographyForRealestate.com</a><br>

Lot's of advice and wisdom there.</p>

 

<p>Rocky I wish you the very best in your R. E. photography business. If you come up with any insight please share with us. My personal experience with R. E. photography left me dumbfounded. I worked with a local R. E. broker for two years trying to demonstrate the value of hiring a professional photographer for their R. E. needs. In the end, by the time the images made it to cheap newsprint R. E. booklets and got muddied up on the MLS websites, there was very little evident difference between my photos and those taken with a celfone during a drive-by! From this I learned the only broker who'd hire a photographer is one who is either selling a lot of vacation homes to wealthy clients or perhaps turns over a bunch of commercial & industrial properties. This is the R.E. photography market I am now seeking. Good luck, sincerely.</p>

Rocky, most MLS services now allow images of at least 1024x728 as previously stated. Make sure you 'save for web'

in photoshop at about 90%. This will give you an image that will look good on most monitors. I have been a

professional real estate photographer for about a year now. Take a look at some of my work at

www.cassityphotos.com and let me know if you have any questions.

<p>My MLS allows uploads of up to 2K file size. The photography service I use gives me all the photos in 3 different file sizes: hi rez, mls and a flyer size. As for aspect, I never have to do any adjustment to proportion, although I see many agents' photos that are cropped and uploaded. MLS automatically stretches them. As someone else here said, I'm dumbfounded!</p>