Over the years I’ve used polls on the PFRE blog to better understand and illustrate the trends that are going in real estate photography. The poll I have on the PFRE poll page on photo-editing is very old (8/2007). And although it’s been up for almost 5 years the results are fuzzy because practices have changed substantially over the time it’s been up. Also, the questions are too simplistic to reflect all the options in post-processing out there today. For this reason I’ve created the four different polls on the subject of post-processing below.

My perception is there is a shift going on away from using just Photoshop to using Lightroom plus a collection of plug-ins that help you do things that Lightroom doesn’t do. Of course there are still things like sky replacement that Lightroom can’t do. But over the last several years Photoshop Elements has increased in functionality so it can many, but not all of what full Photoshop can do. My perception is that many real estate photographers are not choosing to purchase the full version of Photoshop any more.

The results of these polls always amaze me because it is a way of tapping into the collective wisdom of all the readers as a whole. One can easily get a false impression of what’s going from the comments of a vocal few or talking to a handful of readers but polls give a much broader and accurate look at the collective wisdom of a large group. Even though not everyone takes the polls, over time the number that do take the polls make the results statistically significant. The polls are just below. Thanks for your participation.