What resolution should real estate photos be?
Answer
Aim for roughly 3000 pixels on the long edge — large enough for full-screen viewing and the crop-heavy layouts portals use, without the heavy file sizes that slow loading. The minimum that still looks sharp on a laptop is about 1920 pixels; anything under 1024 reads amateur.
Roughly 3000 pixels on the long edge is the practical target for real estate photos — large enough to survive full-screen viewing and the aggressive cropping portals apply, without the file weight that slows page load. Under that, resolution stops being invisible; a 1500-pixel hero image stretched across a laptop display looks soft exactly where buyers zoom in.
The tiers that matter. 1920 pixels wide is the historical HD standard and the honest minimum for a listing — sharp on laptops, acceptable on phones. 3000 to 4000 pixels gives portals room to crop and gives buyers room to zoom into the kitchen without hitting pixel mush. Anything under 1024 pixels reads as amateur at thumbnail-to-full-screen scale, because portals blow thumbnails up on tap.
File size is the balancing act. A 6000-pixel original can run 10 MB, and slow-loading listings lose impatient clicks. Export as high-quality JPEG around 1 to 3 MB per image: visually identical at viewing sizes, quick to load. Shoot RAW if the camera allows, then export the processed version.
Aspect ratio beats raw pixels. Portals favor landscape 3:2 or 4:3; vertical phone shots get letterboxed or cropped by the layout, throwing away resolution where it counts. Shoot horizontal, keep verticals straight, and save the verticals for story-style channels.
When the original is too small. You can't add real pixels — but a good upscale rebuilds plausible detail and usually clears the 1920 threshold cleanly. Test yours: upload the photo and see whether the enlarged version holds sharpness at full-screen size.