Not happy with professional photoshoot results.. now what?

[Jiw0]

I requested a professional photoshoot, for which AirBnB is charging me money, however it then turned out that AirBnB has many rules, some of them quite silly.  Like not being allowed to show towels on the bed, not being allowed to use additional lighting and so on.

However the worst is that the main living room photos came out with a very drab, reddish tint.  My house has a modern interior with gray and green accents and it all looks like it's shot on Mars. 

Is there anything I can do?  I feel many of the pictures can be salvaged with color and white balance correction.   I went back to using my own photo as the main listing photo.

It used to be that photoshoots were free, so if it didn't work out then no need to look a gifted horse in the mouth too much.  But now that it costs quite a bit of money, and not having freedom to arrange my house the way I want, I feel a lot less happy about the 'professional photoshoot' thing.

[Gordon0]

For most people, @Jiw0, there's very little need for professional photography as iPhone/smartphone cameras are pretty decent. I'm not sure you've got much recourse for the quality isues you've stated, but a photography student would have been my go-to in the first place (had I not had a decent smartphone etc.).  

[Barry-and-Lera0]

@Jiw0: I haven't read many good things on the Airbnb photographers so we went with a local real estate photographer. $225 for everything. He was here for about 3 hours. We got 35 photos including drone photos of the the property. We staged the studio how we pleased (including towels...lol) and the pictures turned out great.  

[Gordon0]

@Barry-and-Lera0 I wouldn't actually recommend real estate (estate agent here in the UK) photgraphers as they can make things look a little too good. While your pics are great, one shot of your pool makes it look riodiculously large!

[Barry-and-Lera0]

@Gordon0: No such thing as making things look too good if it is a true representation of the space and what is offered. We had a bunch of pictures that I took with a decent point and shoot camera but the lighting was just not represented well.

Yes the "large" view is the view from IN the pool. The drone shots show how big the pool is in general; in comparison to the lounge chairs, so people understand that the pool is only about 15ft x 10ft.

[Jiw0]

I love that photo!  And the perfect one to use as a main image because it'll stand out and draw attention.

Then once people click on your listing, all the other shots can provide more perspective but ultimately you need to get noticed first, and an awesome photo does that. 

[Jiw0]

So, what I did was modify the photo URL to give me the highest resolution possible (still not great, but high enough) and then I used an image editing app to correct white balance and brightness/contrast levels. 

That's a lot of hoops to jump though after contracting a service. 😞 

This will have been my last time doing this.