Starting today, and until October 9, all current Point2 Agent accounts are being migrated to new Rackspace email accounts, which provide extensive spam filtering, organizational tools, and email messaging options.

Current members’ migration dates will be different, due to the volume of email addresses and emails that must be migrated.  The day prior to the migration, you will receive a migration notification email.  You will still be able to access your old email account at any time to review prior email messages, although after your migration date, all new emails will be delivered to your new Rackspace email account.

If you have not already done so, you will want to export the contacts in your old account and import them into the new Rackspace email account, so that you can generate prospect contact lists, add additional information to contact records, and still keep in touch with your key clients.

If you have any questions regarding the new email accounts, you can reveiw the email migration FAQ’s and some key information about Rackspace.

Once again, the migration to the new Rackspace email accounts has commenced for current Point2 Agent members. We know that you’ll love them as much as we do!

* New members to Point2 Agent will automatically have access to Rackspace email accounts with their membership.

1) Virtual Tour Slideshows:  A progression of still photos usually accompanied by music.  This type of virtual tour comes standard with all Point2 Agent memberships.
2) Panoramic Virtual Tours:  A seamless latitudinal image that allows users to freely pan along the horizon, but with restrictions on longitudinal tilting.
3) 360° Virtual Tours:  A fully seamless view of a scene in all directions.  Users can pan, tilt, and often zoom around a virtual space.

For simplicity’s sake, I will be focusing primarily on the 360° virtual tours for this tutorial.  Please note that the tutorial will be best suited for those with an advanced photographic skill set.

Hardware Needs (Recommended):

• Digital SLR camera
• Ultra-Wide Angle Lens (Fisheye Lens)
• Tripod with Panoramic Tripod Head (i.e. Nodal Ninja)

Software Needs (Recommended):

• Adobe Photoshop
• PTgui Pro
• Cubic Converter
• Pano2VR
  

What are we creating?

Although all virtual tours have some dynamic element (i.e. autoplay, panning, tilting, zooming), they are all created from static photographs.  In order to create a 360° virtual tour we need to create an equirectangular photograph, or a single photograph that captures one area in all directions.  An equirectangular photograph is the result of stitching numerous photos together in a precise way.   There are other types of photos that essentially do the same thing – here’s an example of one, 360° photo processed in three of the most common ways:

Although all of the images appear different, they all essentially do the same thing: display a seamless, 360° view of a single scene.

How to Create an Equirectangular Photograph?

The most common way to create an equirectagular photo is by combining eight of more shots by stitching them together using specialized software.  It’s not as easy as shooting a room in a bunch of different directions though – there are some rules that need to be followed.

Nodal Ninja Tripod Head

First off, the camera has to pivot perfectly on it’s nodal point, or a point within the front lens element.   I recommend using a Nodal Ninja tripod head to assist with this process as it is less expensive than the alternatives, but built equally as well.  To ensure that you are pivoting on the nodal point, use Alain Hamblenne’s grid method available as a pdf here.

Once you have your camera positioned correctly, you’ll need to shoot 6+ shots around the horizontal axis.  The Nodal Ninja includes an array of “detent rings” which allow the camera to click into place at perfect degree intervals (i.e. one click every 60°).

Next, you’ll need one shot straight upwards, and two or three straight downwards (the nadir) at different positions depending on the tripod and/or floor material.

Be sure to level your tripod, and maintain a consistent focusing distance and depth of field.  Ideally, you should try to minimise depth of field by closing down your aperture.  I also recommend focusing to infinity whenever the scene allows for it.

How To Combine Your Photographs:

Before stitching your photographs into an equirectangular image, open up the nadir shots (straight downward) and merge them in Photoshop using a layer mask to eliminate as much of the tripod as possible.  If you shoot one nadir shot handheld, at an angle, or with a lateral tripod arm you can usually get all of the detail you need to completely edit out the tripod from the photo.  Some tours just add a logo or contact information in a circle at the bottom to block out the tripod – sample.  It’s your choice.

Once you have a suitable nadir shot, load all of the images into PTgui Pro, and align them using equirectangular projection.  If the nodal point was spot on, the images should align seamlessly without parallax distortion.  Export the image as a high quality .tiff file and make any levels/contrast/color edits required in Photoshop.  If there’s some finicky edits that need to be made, I recommend loading the equirectangular image into Cubic Converter, and exporting it as cube faces.  The cube faces will be easier to edit as the images will not be subject to so much distortion.  When you’re finished, Cubic Converter can also reconvert the cube faces back to an equirectangular image, but it’s not entirely necessary as Pano2VR can accommodate either type of image.

Processing Your Equirectangular Image as a 360° Virtual Tour:

Advancements in Flash and Java development have led to a massive increase in potential features that can be included in a virtual tour.  You will undoubtedly find some amazing technological feats if you spend some time scouring the web.  To keep things simple though, I recommend using Pano2VR as it offers a simple overall work flow with easy-to-use features.  With a few clicks you can change your viewing parameters, metadata, add hotspots, customize the skin and adjust the size/compression.  For most real estate agents, these features are all you really need.

Most of the settings are pretty straight forward.  Before exporting a tour though, it’s important to consider a couple things:  How much physical space (dimensions) do you have on your web page for the tour?  How fast will it load, and does it need to be compressed?

I recommend exporting your creations in Flash format as most people will have a updated flash plugin for their browser.  Pano2VR will spit out a neat and tidy .swf flash file that Point2 Agent Professional and Premium members can upload onto any web page.

Additional Information:

In my online viewing, I’ve found Rosauro Photography’s tutorial to be the best on the web if you require a more detailed overview.  As far as services go, Australia’s Pixelcase leads the charge for overall excellence in image quality and Flash development.  Automated systems exist too, like Giroptic’s panoramic vision camera.  The result will appear more like a panoramic tour than a 360° virtual tour though, as it uses a mirrorball to record the raw image which inherently blocks out sections of the shot.  No big deal, except that users will be limited to about a 110° longitudinal viewing angle.

As mentioned before, there’s an onslaught of new technology available, and it’s impossible to discuss it all. That should provide a decent overview for the time being.  Feel free to share anything else in the comments area that I may have missed.

HDR, or high dynamic range photography is not unlike the process of stacking negatives.  Essentially, the goal is one of the same: combine a number of bracketed exposures in an effort to create one final image that embodies perfect tonal range.  HDR is not limited to astrophotography by any means; with new hardware and software readily available to the general public, it’s common to see images in every genre that attempt to utilize HDR processing.  Thus, it comes as no surprise that real estate photographers have taken hold of HDR – using it to create both stunning masterpieces and disastrous flops.

The perfect shooting conditions are rare, especially when it comes to real estate.  Fluffy clouds, blue skies, perfect light… these conditions come together sometimes, but not always.  So, it’s nice to have a few tricks up your sleeve that still allow you to create great photos even when your timing is off.  I stepped out the other day for instance, to shoot a photo of the Point2 building (above) only to find washed-out skies and all around ‘bad’ light.  The perfect exposure was not a possibility, and my polarizing filter did nothing to correct the hot sky. I had a tripod with me though, and shot a number of photos at varying exposures, later merging them with HDR techniques.

Here’s a few tips for shooting raw images for later HDR processing:

• Use a sturdy tripod, and a cable release or remote control so your framing remains consistent.
• Bracket your exposures by adjusting your shutter speed rather than your aperture so your depth of field does not change.
• Shoot at least three photos – one underexposed, one overexposed, and one metered correctly.  Spreading out each exposure by a couple of stops is best.
• Shooting at dusk or dawn works great, and you may want to turn on all of the house lights to create a warm, ‘homey’ feel to the final shot.  Keep an eye on varying light sources though, as interior light will appear yellow.  Alternatively, exterior light may appear blue when shooting interiors.
• Avoid shooting areas that have moving objects if possible.  It complicates the merging process.

Once you have three or more bracketed exposures, it’s just a matter of merging them into the ‘perfect’ shot using specialized computer software.  Here’s where things can get tricky, but once you find a system that works for you it becomes much quicker and easier.  When it comes to HDR, practice truly does makes perfect – so don’t expect to master it on your first try.

Keep in mind that the best HDR images tend to be those that appear vibrant, colorful, and clear, while retaining realistic and natural tones.  Unnatural HDR images are everywhere, and there are a number of people who love them as an type of photographic art.  For real estate purposes especially, it’s very important that your images retain their realistic and natural appeal.  After all, you’re using them to sell houses not to win art competitions.  Here’s an example of an unnatural-looking HDR image:

Just because you’re using software designed to create HDR images, doesn’t mean that it’s always correct.  Color and tone can become skewed in the processing stages – sometimes to a point where they can’t be saved.  Just learn to trust your eye.

There’s a growing mass of software solutions that allow you to merge photos for the purposes of HDR.  The most popular is Adobe Photoshop which allows for both automated and manual processes.  Other common solutions include Photomatix, EasyHDR and PTgui Pro.  PTgui Pro also provides photo-stitching solutions for panoramas, and 360-degree virtual tours.  Free solutions include:  Enfuse Gui (PC), xFuse (mac), and Hugin (both).

Countless tutorials are on the web for those looking to get started.  Here’s a few decent one’s I’ve come across:

Adobe Photoshop: Automated Process |  Manual Process
Photomatix : Tutorial on Abduzeedo
PTgui Pro: Tutorial from PTgui Site

Personally, I like to merge photos manually with Photoshop.  It takes more time, but it always looks more natural in the end.  I have tested both Photomatix and PTgui Pro though, and I find Photomatix best for automated HDR processing and manual tone mapping.  Almost all of the paid solutions offer free trials, so I suggest testing as many of them as possible before making your final decision.  In the mean time, have a peek at some real estate HDR samples on PFRE’s Flickr page.  Enjoy!

I prefer Starbucks.

I am not a huge coffee drinker, but when I do want coffee I want it my way – something Tim Hortons can’t measure up to. 

Actually, I’d much rather go to a small, family-run coffee shop than Starbucks, it’s just that they are everywhere (on almost as many corners as Tim Hortons), so it’s really just a matter of convenience.

Why Starbucks over Tim Hortons?

I am picky.  Plain and simple.  I’m not going to try to disguise it as me being some sort of connoisseur on what is truly great coffee.  I don’t think I care all that much.  For me, it’s the way I like my coffee made at any given time.

Coffee, plus more.

Some days I want a decaf latte with skim milk, and sugar-free vanilla syrup.  Some days I want a double-shot espresso latte with coffee cream, sugar-free hazelnut syrup, iced.  Some days I want something entirely more complex.  Tim Hortons doesn’t even carry skim milk, let alone sugar-free flavorings.

Plus, I want to be able to order my drink without feeling like too much of a diva.  Everyone who goes to Starbucks orders something specific to their tastes.  It’s, like, basically expected.

But seriously, my point is …

I did actually have a point with all this coffee talk.  Because I know I am high-maintenance and picky, I don’t view this as a fault at all.  In fact, I think if we all look deep down, every single one of us wants to have things our way.  This includes the services we use online, and even the real estate software provider that we would choose.

There’s no denying the number of real estate related website providers that are available out there.  In many cases, the products and services offered by each provider are rather similar:  A website, a lead/prospect management system, and statistics tracking.

When a real estate professional selects a software provider, in a lot of cases it boils down to personal preference.  Having the ability to choose from a suite of tools and features, available at your fingertips at any given time, allows a realtor to have complete control over their online presence and marketing - that also fits their preferences.  So, it would make sense to choose a provider with the best features available and the features that you’d make the most use of.

Website, plus more.

Every cup of coffee has the same basic ingredient - coffee.  It’s the added perks that make me love my coffee more: the cream, the flavorings, the ice.

Every real estate provider has similar ingredients – website, prospect management, stats.  But what other perks do they offer that make you want and need to use them more than any of the others?

Do they offer automatic syndication of your listings to the largest network of consumer search sites in the industry?

Do they provide you with the ability to not only capture leads but to market to them intelligently using predictive marketing?

Do they have built-in Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic and performance?

If they do that and more, then you’re off to a great start.

OK, it’s coffee time.  Excuse me while I enjoy my double-shot-no-fat-iced-with-sugar-free-vanilla-syrup-latte.

What types of image editors exist out there, and what one is right for you?

How do you get started learning how to use an image editor?

First off, let’s talk about the industry leader in image editing: Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop has been available to consumers since 1990, and was first released for Macintosh users only. Since then, the Photoshop image has grown so large that the term is now synonymous with image manipulation in general. For instance, the phrase; “Has that been photoshopped?” is now fair game.

Adobe has solidified itself as the industry leader by being intuitive, receptive and innovative and that remains true with their newest release: Photoshop CS4. It was just over a year ago when I first watched a video outlining a new approach to scaling images, and I thought to myself: Adobe’s going to want this. It was no surprise when “content-aware scaling” was highlighted as one of the many new features in the latest package.

As with all success stories, there’s bound to be a few “clones” that emerge and attempt to reap some of the rewards. For Photoshop the clones are many, and some are good, while others are something worse than awful. If you can afford the $999 US price tag for Adobe CS4 Extended, then go for it; if not, you might want to seek an alternative.

My Alternative Suggestions (in order of price):

1) Adobe CS4 (not Extended) – $699 US
2) Adobe Photoshop Elements - $139.99 US
3) The Gimp – Free
4) Gimpshop (The same as The Gimp, but modified to appear more like Photoshop) – Free

As for how to use image editing software, I suggest to learn bit by bit. Start with some basic tutorials, learn how to perform the edits you need to make, and move on from there. Google lists 4,420,000 results for the phrase “Photoshop Tutorials” and 466,000 for “The Gimp tutorials” so I’m sure with some refined wording and perseverance you can learn how to do anything your heart desires.  You might even have fun.

She was utterly transfixed.

She loved Grease.  Her level of excitement couldn’t have been higher if she had just discovered that she could fly, that there was in fact a fourth Doodlebop, or that she now would be allowed to swallow gum, rather than simply chewing it.

Immediately she was sitting five inches from the TV, swaying to the music, singing along . . . 

This lasted for ten minutes or so until, suddenly, she began to howl and scream and cry.

We leapt up and dashed over to her, thinking she had bonked her head, had her fingers caught in a drawer or perhaps, judging by the sheer volume and ferocity of the screaming, was having flaming bamboo jammed under her toenails by some unseen captor.

We quickly deduced that she was not, in fact, bleeding.  And when she was able to calm herself enough to take a breath, she told us what was wrong.

“Dancing . . . show . . . went . . . bye-bye”

We looked up.

Grease, being televised on a network, had gone to commercial.

Yes.  That’s right.  My daughter is so conditioned to watching shows on PVR (and to watching all the commercial-free kids shows) that she thought the commercial break meant that her show was gone forever.

This is terrifying on so many levels. 

(First, my daughter clearly gets too much TV and too much of what she demands.)

Second, it is terrifying because you think good usability is a challenge now??  How much more difficult is it going to be when my daughter’s generation – a generation who, as toddlers, will not stand for the unimaginable  inconvenience of the Backyardigans being interrupted, let alone the myriad Blue Screens of Death of the world - is working with our websites and our software?

Will she and her peers be likely to find, download, and install a plug-in just to make your software work?  Will she be willing to overlook your nasty 404s because of your ubiquitous “beta” label?  Will she spend half an hour learning how to interact with your product or will she just move on to something better?

Simple, intuitive, impossible-not-to-understand software.  We all realize that this is the path on which we must continue.

But we’d better hurry . . .

My daughter turns three in December, and for her birthday I’m buying her a laptop.