The days of black and white streetview MLS photos are gone. If you have access to a digital camera, there is a lot of fun marketing techniques that you can use with digital photography. Today's consumer wants the whole tour, not just the street view, especially if they are comparison shopping from out of town.

REALTORS® are becoming increasingly competitive with photo marketing strategies, especially when their homes are presented through the MLS online on the big home search sites such as Realtor.com.

With a click of a mouse, the listing can be linked to the Realtor's home page where the home can be digitally viewed from an assortment of perspectives - back yard, interior entry, living areas, kitchen, and master suite. Many homes are showcased through their extras, such as fireplaces, swimming pools, or custom millwork. Some savvy Realtors are providing links to additional pages to feature neighborhood amenities, such as clubs, schools, major employers and recreational facilities. These are pictures that can be used again and again for subsequent listings.

Many Realtors are using digital photos in their direct marketing, by e-mailing the home views to customers. More than once, the digital photo has made the sale. Alice Held, a relocation expert from the Scottsdale area, recently showed a home to a transfering executive, whose wife was unable to make the trip. Held downloaded dozens of photos of the home, and e-mailed them to the wife. She chose the home based on the photos, and the sale proceeded.

That's what some agents are doing. So how do you raise the bar?

Trivista(tm) Technologies has introduced some new softwares aimed at the real estate digital camera buff. Their primary advantage is that they are easy to use and solve some real needs.

If you are currently e-mailing photos to customers, publishing photos for feature sheets, or putting pictures of homes on your Web page, you can benefit from Trivista's Smaller Image software.

The file sizes of digital images from digital cameras, scanners, and photo devleoping are quite large and can take a minute or longer to download from a Web site. Since many home buyers begin their research on the Web, they will not have the patience to spend waiting for an image of a home to download over their modem.

A Smaller Image offers Realtors the opportunity to greatly reduce the file size of their digital images prior to emailing to prospective customers or publishing on a Website. The smaller file will download much faster.

Most cameras offer 640 X 480 pixels or larger for digital imaging. But for a Web page, or an e-mail, 320 X 240 or smaller may be sufficient, allowing you to transfer more images more quickly for viewing. Smaller Image can also be used for cropping as well as reducing pictures.

Another Trivista product, The Paper PhotoCube, offers a unique way to present a digital portfolio.

Whether you are using a scanner to scan prints into your computer, or making digital prints from film, or downloading digital photos from digital cameras, you can use the Paper PhotoCube software to print out, assemble and display photos of homes.

John Mareda, president of Trivista, suggests, "The cube is novel and an attention grabber. The agent could make cubes of their current listings and hav e them on display in their office for new prospective clients to see. They could include a paper photo cube in their new clinet packages. The uniqueness of the cube may help sign on some clients who are looking at several Realtors. They could print out a handful of Paper PhotoCubes (unassambled) and have them available on the counter in the home next to the data sheet. Prospective customers could take one with them to help them remember the house."

Trivista also makes 3D ImageCube, a method of making electronic picture cubes from digital photos, featuring an easy-to-use interface to guide you through the process of selecting a set of digital images and placing them on the faces of a cube or carousel. The resulting interactive cube can be manipulated using the mouse or with a set of simple controls. This is a fun enhancement for a Web site.

The 3D ImageScene software is also available for creating interactive, Web-ready, modem friendly 3D scenes, based on your digital photos.

Trivista's 3D products are based on VRML, the standard for 3D on the Web. If your Web browser is not VRML enabled, you can download the latest VRML player from Trivista's Website.

Published: January 20, 1999

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