How to Fix Blown-Out Windows in Listing Photos

Why it happens

Your eye handles roughly twenty stops of brightness. A phone camera handles about ten. Point one at a dim room with a bright window and it has to choose: expose for the room and lose the window, or expose for the window and turn the room into a silhouette. It picks the room, and the window blows out.

Professional shooters solve this by bracketing several exposures and blending them. That takes a tripod and a second pass in Lightroom.

What to do at the property

• Open every blind fully and pull the curtains right back — not halfway.
• Turn on every interior light. Lifting the room narrows the gap to the window.
• Shoot when the sun is not directly on that side of the house.
• Take one extra frame tapped-to-expose on the window, so you know what is really out there.

Fixing the shots you already have

The Window & View tool recovers the exposure outside, cleans the glass of smudges and glare, and removes blinds, screens and curtain hardware that were blocking the opening — while keeping the frames, mullions and the rest of the room exactly as photographed.

One rule: if the property view is a parking lot, say so. Recovering a view that exists is a photo fix. Inventing a better one is a misrepresentation, and it is the kind of thing that ends up in front of a board.