Real estate photography in London, and what to do with the files

North-facing, lower ground, lit by a light well

A large share of prime London stock is a garden or lower-ground flat whose main reception faces north into a light well or a walled garden. There is no direct sun in it at any hour, the daylight that does arrive has bounced off brick and comes in green, and whoever is shooting switches on a warm lamp that makes the cast worse. Auto Enhance is doing two jobs there: lifting shadow without turning the walls to mush, and separating two colour temperatures so the room reads as one space rather than two.

White stucco against a white sky

Belgravia, Notting Hill and South Kensington are painted stucco, and painted stucco is the worst possible subject under a flat overcast — the render and the sky end up at the same value, so the crescent loses its edge and the mouldings lose their shadow. Sky Swap gives the frame something to sit against and regrades the elevation to match. What it will not do is invent a summer that changes what the street actually looks like. Replaced weather is an edit, and the listing should say so.

Most flats are photographed empty, and empty reads small

London flats come to market between tenancies or once a chain-free vendor has moved out, so the photographs are of bare rooms with the curtain poles still up. Empty rooms consistently read smaller than furnished ones, and a four-and-a-half metre reception looks like a corridor with nothing in it for scale. Virtual Staging furnishes to scale and leaves the floor, walls, windows and fireplace exactly as photographed. European Classic and Scandinavian are the two settings that suit period London stock.