I love making lots.  I love downloading lots.  I think that a Sims 3 Residential Lot is a real challenge in and of itself.  But I'm not talking about architecture here.  You can read my other blog post about that.  I'm talking about taking pictures of your lot to show everyone how wonderful your architectural prowess is.  Taking pictures of your lot is easy and will display some of the finer points of your house/community center/etc.  By following these pretty simple steps, you can show off your lot and not annoy potential downloaders with flashy photos of really angular rooms.

1. Front of the Lot: Taking a picture of the front is enough to entice.  Think of how home magazines are set up.  There's the front of the house, a couple pictures of the views or attractive rooms, then the layout.  The front of the house is important because you don't want to show off a really nice home/community lot with a rather crappy looking entrance.  The front of the house picture is like a prologue of what's to come.

2. Interior shots: The most appealing to you is most likely what's going to be appealing to others.  The amazing looking split level living room, the raised kitchen, the sunken bedroom, the sunlit basement.  Decorated makes the home attractive.  Not decorated makes the imagination run wild.  Throw in a couple of these, but don't go overboard.  Give the potential downloader just a taste of what it'll look like from the sims' point of view.

3. Outdoor shots: Landscaping accents the house by framing the views, softly hiding the structure to make the home look almost mystical at times.  Show off your bridged pond, your outdoor sunning area, your garden bursting with fruits and vegetables. 

4. LAYOUT PICTURES:  I feel I must emphasize this one, though not rightly enough.  I HATE it when I see a cute little house with a couple really nice accent pictures, and no layout shots.  I'm the type of downloader where I like to see a map of what I'm getting.  Looking at that makes the real decision as to whether I'm going to click that download button or close the window.  I don't want to have to download the house, then look at the layout, and discover that it's a house I didn't really want to download.  A birds-eye shot of each level is wonderful.  If you don't want to take pictures while the grid is all over the ground, click the terrain paints option in build mode and hide the cursor under the house.  After you take a snapshot of the roof, hit the page dwn button on your keyboard, hit the C button, lather, rinse, repeat with each floor.  Make sure that the house itself fits your screen, too.  You don't want to have your home in a corner of your picture so that the main purpose of showing off your layout is moot.

5. Birds-eye Lot Pictures: These I wouldn't recommend putting in unless you have a rather complicated maze going on with your lot.  They may be fine just to accent the download, but they're not necessary.  Leave the downloader with something to discover on the lot.

6. Brightness: I've seen houses uploaded that have nothing but frontal shots, daytime and nighttime, and there are just way too many "glaring" angles that blind out the entire shot.  It's good to put accents here and there with maybe photoshop or gimp.  But don't blind me with your super white house with the sun behind it.  I can't see what I'm looking at.  A typical day shot, maybe while the sun is setting behind the camera is nice.  But if you have a regular day shot, when the sun is high in the sky, the shadows are minimal and it brings out the true color of the house, as well as some depth and detail that a nighttime shot may not provide.  

7. Bunch up the shots: Put some nice photos of your house together.  Interior shots in one image, exterior shots in another.  Limit your images to four shots of the house, maybe some text to explain what the images are of.  Anything more than four photos of the house (especially of one room) is just overkill.

If you don't know what I mean by any of this, please refer to this download: http://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/1005112