Digitally altered photos used in advertising

[mmerlin]

Found this article at the Herald Sun:
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/printpage/0,5481,7263937,00.html

Which says some agents have been found digitally altering photos to remove power poles, wires and even a neighbouring house, so as to present a property more favourably.

Personally, I have seen some photos online which look like they have have had a few colour adjustments made (making the photos more vivid) which I don't mind so much.

But going to the point of digitally removing elements from the photo... this is deliberate deception in my opinion.

Then again, I suppose these agents think they are just presenting the property in the best light.

Has anyone else experienced these kind of tactics being used?

What about properties that are advertisted with drawings by artists / architects etc? There is plenty of scope for improvement by omission, and I would imagine much less legal onus to be 100% accurate, since it is only an artistic rendering.

 

[bundy1964]

Originally posted by mmerlin
What about properties that are advertisted with drawings by artists / architects etc? There is plenty of scope for improvement by omission, and I would imagine much less legal onus to be 100% accurate, since it is only an artistic rendering.

You can take a photo using photo shop or similar and turn it into a drawing which can hide many sins. Worse sins can be fixed with the other tools available with your weapon of choice

Buyers also use the same tricks to send photos to OS relatives of an artistic representation of what they think the finished project would look like My laptop and digital camera have been know to fix salt damp, cracks, peeling paint, rusty gutters, weeds and oil stained driveways Oil painting effects are popular too and hide a few sins of the artist

bundy

 

[Kevmeister]

To the photojournalist, a change to the photograph represents a lie. We're not talking about things like color correction, adjusting sharpness etc because that is concerned with getting the best picture quality.

But in advertising it seems to be a lot different. Real Estate agents have long been trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear when it comes to their descriptions of property, so extending that to a digital photograph is much in the same vein I think.

Which is not to say I agree with it. The problem is that people [tend to] assume photographs are factual, a representation of reality, so in my opinion the deception is stronger when a photograph is changed compared to a text description.

 

[Desto]

I have noticed this too. Sometimes it is so badly done that blank spots are clearly visible, on the side of the house especially when they are trying to hide the ugly monstrosity next to the 'beauty' for sale.

And yes, I have inspected houses after seeing the photo and then almost driven past it when I didn't expect the big tree in front or the powerpole etc.

Deceptive advertising indeed.

Reminds me of a flyer for a second hand car dealer in Melbourne many years ago. It had a big photo of their employees on the top. Being bored, I looked at each face and noticed that there were about 6 pairs of identical twins in that company

 

[pennyk]

it can backfire though....

My friend is a graphic artist and gave his real estate agents some beautiful photos of his little fibro house... They weren't enhanced, they were just cropped and angled to look beautiful. But it really backfired for him, cause when people came to look they were expecting something beautiful and weren't expecting a little fibro house. so a lot of people just left the property alone.
But I guess its something to be careful of buying a house at a distance.
Penny

 

[Amarantha]

I've also noticed interior photos that have obviously been stretched to make the room look bigger. I probably wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't been stupid enough to do it to a bathroom shot (no-one's toilet seat is *that* wide). So now I don't trust any photo of a room.

 

[Aceyducey]

At the end of the day though once potential buyers go eyeball the place they'll quickly see it's not what it was made out to be.

So this tactic by agents is really not in their best interest - reduces trust & attracts the wrong buyers. Once the RE Agent builds a poor enough reputation they lose a lot of their business anyway.

The only time it would work effectively is for sight-unseen purchasing.

Cheers,

Aceyducey

 

[hwd007]

Personally I think this practice is common place, contrary to what they who are reported to be doing it, claim. I agree that I could annoy some people and they could loose just as much business they create by doing it, possibly more.