Photoshop Surgery

Weather and moving are two of the most unpredictable components of a real estate photoshoot, as both can quickly turn a carefully planned session into a disaster, especially if you don’t know how to edit. Sudden clouds, harsh midday sun, or unexpected rain can flatten colors, create heavy shadows, or wash out skies. At the same time, the reality of homes being in transition (boxes half-packed, furniture missing, or rooms not fully staged) can leave images feeling incomplete or unbalanced. 

That’s where strong photo editing and retouching skills become essential. Editing isn’t just a finishing touch; it’s the other half of the job. Correcting exposure, replacing dull skies, balancing interior and exterior light, removing distractions, and enhancing color all work together to transform a challenging capture into a polished, market-ready image. 

Your home becomes a product once it is listed in the MLS.

Retouching can range from just a few quick clicks to fix color and brightness to hours of detailed work, carefully removing objects that couldn’t be cleared before the photoshoot, cleaning up reflections, or reconstructing small areas of a room so the final image looks natural and inviting. Without these post-production techniques, many otherwise great properties would never be shown at their full potential.

For professional real estate photographers, this editing and retouching process often represents 60% of the total work involved in delivering a final gallery. Yet it is also the portion of the job that is frequently invisible, and sometimes unpaid. Clients see the finished photos but not the hours spent refining them behind the scenes. Even so, this hidden labor is what ensures consistency, professionalism, and images that truly help a property stand out in a competitive market.

For me, photo retouching and editing is ZEN. Refining an image, balancing the light when needed, adjusting the colors, and removing distractions is just as relaxing as other people find massages. It’s a calm, focused space where creativity and precision meet, and where the chaos of weather, moving boxes, and imperfect conditions transforms into something clean, beautiful, and complete. I absolutely love it.

Here are two images from one of my latest photo shoots, where the weather and the garage needed some Photoshop surgery:

HDR is ok in some cases, but just merging three images into one and calling it "done" is not professional; it is false advertising. Colors still need to be adjusted, and many items still need to be removed before an image is fully finished.