Exposure, white balance, cropping and straightening are ordinary professional work and no rule treats them otherwise. Adding furniture, changing the paint, or taking the neighbor's roof out of the frame is a different act — and since 1 January 2026 it carries a written disclosure duty in California. This page is where that line actually falls, and what you have to say when you cross it.
Information, not legal advice. Every rule below names its source and links to it.
A heavily graded photograph of the room as it stands is adjustment. A light touch that deletes a radiator is alteration. California's statute draws it exactly there — on whether elements were added, removed or changed — and the two columns below are its own examples, on each side.
Common editing that does not change the representation of the property. No disclosure duty attaches to these under § 10140.8.
Elements added, removed or changed, by photo editing software or by AI. These are the statute's own examples.
Assembly Bill 723 added section 10140.8 to the Business and Professions Code. It is the only state statute on altered listing images we have read and verified, and it applies to any broker or salesperson advertising a property for sale, or anyone acting on their behalf.
A reasonably conspicuous statement disclosing that the image has been altered, on or adjacent to the altered image itself.
A link to a publicly accessible website, URL or QR code that contains and clearly identifies the original, unaltered image — and the disclosure has to say the unaltered images can be reached there.
On a posting on a site the licensee controls, the unaltered versions have to be there, either included directly or reached by that link.
The three requirements above are a summary of the section, not a quotation of it. We could not obtain its verbatim text to the standard this site holds itself to elsewhere — the Legislature's own site serves a bot challenge to automated readers, and the mirrors that republish the code cap quotation. So read it at the source before relying on the wording, and treat the summary as a map rather than the text.
Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 10140.8 — California Legislative Information ↗This is the rule that will actually be enforced against you, and this page is not going to tell you what it says. Most MLS rulebooks are members-only, and the third-party write-ups of individual MLS photo rules contradict each other — we checked, including for the MLS covering our own densest market, and could not confirm a rule text from the source. Read your own rulebook, or ask your MLS. Anyone who quotes it to you without a member login is guessing.
Article 12 requires that REALTORS® be, in its opening words, “honest and truthful in their real estate communications” and present a true picture in advertising, marketing and other representations. Standard of Practice 12-10 reaches internet content and images specifically, including misleading images. Article 2 separately bars exaggeration, misrepresentation or concealment of pertinent facts about a property. None of the three names photo editing — they do not have to.
2026 Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice — NAR ↗Which leaves one workable default outside California: if the edit would change what a buyer understands about the property, label it and keep the unaltered original somewhere you can produce it. That satisfies both rules without needing to know which one bites first.
Yes. Routine photographic adjustment is normal professional practice and no rule treats it as alteration: exposure, lighting, white balance, color correction, sharpening, cropping, straightening and angle. What is regulated is editing that changes what the property appears to be — adding, removing or changing something in it. In California that distinction is now statutory, and for REALTORS® everywhere it sits under the Code of Ethics duty to present a true picture in advertising and marketing.
Under California Business and Professions Code § 10140.8, an image created by or at the direction of a broker or salesperson and changed with photo editing software or artificial intelligence so as to add, remove or change elements. The section's own examples include fixtures, furniture, paint color, floor plans, the view through a window, streetlights and neighboring properties. Images where only common adjustments were made — lighting, sharpening, white balance, color correction, angle, straightening, cropping, exposure — are excluded, provided those adjustments do not change the representation of the property.
In California, yes: adding furniture digitally adds elements to the image, which places it inside § 10140.8 and requires both a disclosure and access to the unaltered original. Outside California there is no statute we have verified that says so, but two things usually do. Your MLS's own rules — most rulebooks address altered and staged photos, and they are the operative rules for you. And for a REALTOR®, Article 12 of the Code of Ethics requires a true picture in advertising and marketing, with Standard of Practice 12-10 covering misleading images specifically. The common practice across MLSs is to label the staged photo and keep an unaltered version available.
Three things, since 1 January 2026. A reasonably conspicuous statement disclosing that the image has been altered, placed on or adjacent to the altered image. A link to a publicly accessible website, URL or QR code containing and clearly identifying the original unaltered image, with the disclosure saying the unaltered images can be reached there. And on a site the licensee controls, the unaltered versions have to be present, either directly or by that link. The duty is on the broker or salesperson, or anyone acting on their behalf.
Removing a neighboring property or a streetlight is named in § 10140.8's own examples of alteration, so in California it triggers disclosure and the unaltered original. A parked car is not named and is not part of the real property, so whether removing it changes the representation of the property is genuinely unsettled rather than something this page can resolve. Where it is unsettled, disclosing costs nothing and not disclosing is the side with exposure.
Unresolved, and we would rather say so. The statute's exclusion covers common adjustments that do not change the representation of the real property, and the sky is not part of the real property — but replacing it is not an exposure or white-balance adjustment either, and the section does not name it. Treat it as disclosable if the edit would change what a buyer understands about the property, and keep the original either way.
In California the definition reaches images changed with photo editing software or artificial intelligence, so an AI edit is in scope on the same terms as a manual one. Nothing in it turns on which tool did the work — only on whether elements were added, removed or changed.
The licensee. § 10140.8 places the duty on the real estate broker or salesperson, or someone acting on their behalf, which is where a photographer or editor working at their direction sits. Commissioning the edit does not move the obligation to the person who performed it.
ShowingMarket is a marketplace for showing coverage — licensed agents covering showings, open houses and property access for each other. We wrote this page because the disclosure question lands on the same desk as everything else on a listing, not because we have an editing service to sell you. Two things here are ours:
Photographers, editors and virtual stagers can take a paid listing inside the app, shown to signed-in licensed agents. Agents call you directly — no commission, no per-lead fee, no bidding. It is a new marketplace and we do not quote lead counts, because we do not have honest ones to quote.
What a listing costs and includes →A disclosure duty that depends on each agent remembering it is a policy, not a control. Our compliance layer holds a firm's own requirements and refuses the work until they are met, with a versioned rule history and a record per assignment.
Compliance software for brokerages →