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They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and if that picture is of a property that has been so manipulated it looks unreal, people are going to assume the listing is too good to be true.
On a recent episode of Secrets of the Top 100 Agents, Brad Filliponi, co-founder of real estate image retouching platform BoxBrownie.com, shared his thoughts on how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the field of property image retouching, and what to be aware of while the tech is working through some growing pains.
As Filliponi noted, at the end of the day any image manipulation has “got to be ethical. It’s got to look realistic”.
In virtual staging, where AI has been touted for its potential, that means ensuring the elements that have been introduced are realistic – from a visual perspective as well as what is actually possible within the property.
Of the first task – simply making the furniture appear to fit within the property – Filliponi noted that manually it is “not a quick process”.
“Things you want to check include: is the scale right, is the perspective right, is it all proportioned? Shadowing is a huge thing from window sources, so we actually add artificial light through the windows. That’s realistic, but that’s what gives it the depth,” he explained.
As the head of a company that is at the forefront of tech changes in real estate photography, Filliponi emphasised that he is on board with the idea of using AI, but cautioned that it might not yet be up to scratch.
“AI, yes, it’s back in a jiffy. I was just testing one this morning. It looks plastic, it looks fake in my eyes,” he said.
“I’m not saying AI won’t get better; I’m definitely not saying that. And when it is good, we’ll be offering it. But there are a lot of factors that go into [virtual staging],” Filliponi, who is a photographer by trade, noted.
Acknowledging that he may have more of a trained eye for unreal detail, he feels that consumers are still able to tell when something is off.
“I think when you look at something, you know, it looks real or it doesn’t.”
When it comes to the ethical part of the equation, Filliponi noted that it ultimately comes back to the agent’s responsibility to ensure they’re being true to the property. He’s a proponent for images that can show a potential buyer what they might be able to achieve with a space or land, but that depending on how the visuals have been manipulated, a disclosure might be necessary.
“We have a virtual renovation product. We can knock out walls, add pools, literally rehab a whole house if you want. But you want to really disclose that; put the before photo up there and then maybe put the after and say, ‘Hey, here’s the possibility of this property’. You might put some tradesman quotes of that as well,” he remarked.
The danger area is that when no human component is involved with creating edits, it’s easy for changes to slip through the cracks that might land agents in ethically dicey territory.
He noted for example that his team is across a number of different legal obligations, such as the fact that it’s illegal to insert grass into an image in the US state of Texas.
Ultimately it’s agents who are responsible for how their marketing materials go out, but more human touch can ensure that “edits, such as grass greening or sky replacement, are conducted with the utmost integrity, adhering to local regulations and ethical standards,” according to Filliponi.
But as the tech gets better, he’s sure this will be a valuable tool for agents, just as human image retouching continues to be – but with the caveat that it still has to be done ethically.
“I think a photo is worth 1,000 words and you just got to use that photo. Right. So always disclose, always be upfront, and it’s all about being transparent. That way no one thinks you’re being dodgy and misleading.”
Listen to the full episode here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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