Listing photo order checklist

The first photo decides whether anyone opens the listing; the next four decide whether they ask to see it. The order below follows the route a person takes when they walk in, so the gallery answers questions in the order people ask them.

Before you shoot

[ ] Every light on, blinds open, shoot in daylight
[ ] Toilet seats down, bins out of shot, cables hidden, fridge door cleared
[ ] Cars off the drive, bins off the front
[ ] Phone lens wiped; shoot landscape (horizontal) at chest height
[ ] Wide lens if you have one, but no fisheye: a room that looks bigger than it is costs you the showing (US) / viewing (UK, NZ)
[ ] Nothing personal in frame: post, photos of people, anything with a name or an address on it
[ ] Occupied property: the current tenant's permission, and their belongings kept out of shot where you can

The order

#	Shot	Why it goes here
1	The exterior, straight on, in good light	It is the thumbnail. It tells people what kind of place it is before they read a word.
2	The main living space, from the doorway or a corner, showing the most floor	The room people imagine living in.
3	The kitchen, whole room, then one detail if it earns it	The second question everyone has.
4	The main bedroom	Show the bed and one wall of storage if there is any.
5	The bathroom	Straight on, lid down, mirror not reflecting you.
6	Other bedrooms, in size order	Label a small room honestly in the caption.
7	Second bathroom / cloakroom / laundry
8	Outside space: yard, garden, balcony, terrace	If it is a selling point, move it up to 3.
9	Parking, storage, bike store, shared spaces	Answers the questions that fill your inbox.
10	The street or the view	Context, not decoration.
11	Floor plan	Always last, and always included if you have one.

Cut these

[ ] Duplicates: two angles of the same room that show the same thing. Keep the wider one.
[ ] Blurry, dark or tilted photos. Straighten vertical lines; re-shoot rather than brighten a dark photo.
[ ] Close-ups of taps, handles and light switches, unless it is genuinely unusual.
[ ] Photos of a different unit "for illustration". If it is not this property, it does not go in this gallery.
[ ] Anything that shows a problem you have not mentioned in the description. Mention it, or fix it.
[ ] Photos with location data you did not mean to share (see below).

Before you publish

[ ] The first photo works as a small thumbnail on a phone
[ ] Captions say what the room is ("Bedroom 2, fits a double") rather than what you feel about it
[ ] The gallery order matches the description order
[ ] Location metadata (GPS) removed from the files, especially for an occupied property. Many phones let you switch it off when sharing; check yours.
[ ] 10 to 20 photos. Enough to answer questions, few enough that people reach the floor plan.

Where Loftfolio fits (optional reading)

On Loftfolio's Pro and Agency plans, photo checks flag low-resolution and near-duplicate photos and suggest an order that leads with the exterior. Photos uploaded to Loftfolio are held in its own storage and stripped of location metadata on upload. See the features