The only headshot measured in inches.
A brand manual sizes it for a lawn. A portal cuts it to a circle. Neither one knows the other exists.
Five shapes, and one of them is on its side
Most professions upload one square file and are done. A real estate agent hands the same face to a sign shop, a franchise brand system, two national portals and an MLS, and every one of them has already decided what shape it is. These are the RE/MAX standards for its own property signs, drawn at the ratios the manual publishes.
- 6 x 7.5 in · sign photo
- 10 x 16 in · slash panel
- 6 x 6 in · sign photo
- 9.25 in · collection arc
- 5.75 x 4.5 in · collection line
The last frame is the one worth staring at. A landscape crop out of a portrait is a band across the middle: at 1152 by 1440, which is what a shoot here hands you, that band is 1152 by 902 and everything above the eyebrows is gone. It is the one crop on this page you have to frame for before the photograph exists, not after.
What each surface asks for
Read at source in August 2026, from the brokerage manual and the platforms themselves rather than from anybody summarising them.
- A property sign photo6 x 7.5 in, or 6 x 6 in
The RE/MAX manual sets both sizes and two rules with them: professional business attire, and cropped at the waist or higher, because full-body images are not permitted on signage. Caricatures, illustrations, emojis and personal logos are out as well.
- A Slash design panel10 x 16 in, clipped photos only
Clipped means the background is gone and the figure is cut out, which is not a crop but a different file with an alpha channel. That panel is taller than it is wide by a long way, so the original has to have been shot with room above and below.
- The Collection arc sign9.25 in circle
On the luxury tier the photo is a circle with a sky blue outline a quarter of an inch thick. A frame composed for a rectangle loses its four corners here, and the corners are where the shoulders are.
- The Collection line sign5.75 x 4.5 in
Landscape. Wider than it is tall, on a sign, for a portrait. This is the one crop on the page that a normal headshot cannot supply without either losing the top of the head or having been framed loose on purpose.
- A portal profile180 px minimum, square
Zillow states that floor and displays the square rounded into a circle on most templates, and forbids putting a phone number, a website, a tagline or a discount claim into the image. Keller Williams asks for 500 by 500 in Command. Bright MLS wants a jpg of at least 1024 by 768 between 100 KB and 3 MB.
RE/MAX Brand Identity, Trademark and Graphic Standards, 21st Edition 2026. One rule you will read elsewhere, that the sign photo may not have a white background, is not in this edition and is not repeated here.
Three settings, one man, no borrowed face
The white wall frame is the one that clips: a plain ground is what a cut-out needs, and it is what the Slash panel and the Dynamic logo both require. The other two are the ones for a profile, where a background is allowed to say where you work.
Nobody is regulating your face. That is the problem.
Real estate regulates photographs harder than almost any other trade, and all of it points at the house. Two states now legislate what may be done to a listing image. An MLS will pull a photograph that has a person in it. The code of ethics asks for a true picture in advertising, and in the association's own published case interpretations of that article, across twenty-six worked examples, not one is about an agent's own portrait.
So the restraint on your own face is not a rule. It is the front door. Whatever the photograph promised, the person who opens that door has to be the same one, and the three seconds before anybody says hello are the whole of the first impression this business runs on.
Which is why this engine will change your light, your background and your jacket and will not touch your face. No slimming, no smoothing, no ten years off. The median agent is fifty-seven and the share aged sixty or over is approaching half the profession, so a product that quietly de-ages people is selling most of this industry a photograph that cannot be shown to a client twice.
It is also the reason the honest answer to the reshoot question is not annual. The trigger is a brokerage move, and every sign, card and portal has to change at once when it happens.
Before you upload anything
Take the branding off first
The RE/MAX trademark rules say its marks and head office materials may not be put into generative AI tools, and that branding goes on afterwards by hand. A logo polo, a name badge or a sign in the background of your reference photos is exactly that. Wear something plain.
Shoot loose, crop later
A circle eats the corners, a landscape sign panel eats the top of the head, and a clipped panel is twice as tall as it is wide. Every one of those is a subtraction from a frame that already exists, so the frame has to start with more in it than the tightest crop needs.
Keep the full-size file
What comes out of a shoot here is 1152 by 1440 per photograph. A portal will take a fifth of that; a sign shop wants four figures across. Uploading the version a website already squeezed is how a face ends up soft on a lawn.
Asked by agents
Can a real estate agent use an AI headshot?
Nothing found in US real estate law forbids it. Every AI image rule on the books is about the house rather than the agent: California AB 723, in force since January 2026, defines a digitally altered image entirely in terms of fixtures, flooring, paint, hardscape and landscape, and Wisconsin Act 69 uses the same framing from January 2027. The New York Department of State warning of November 2025 is about listing photographs too. The one rule that touches your workflow is a brokerage one, and it is in the next answer.
Is there anything I must not upload to an AI headshot tool?
If you are with RE/MAX, yes, and it is easy to do by accident. Section E of the trademark rules in the 2026 brand manual says RE/MAX trademarks and materials supplied by head office may not be input into generative AI tools, and that branding has to be added to generated content by hand afterwards. So the reference pictures you upload must not have a branded name badge, a logo polo or a sign in them. Photograph yourself in something plain and let the brokerage marks go on later, where they belong.
Why has my new photo not updated on Realtor.com?
Because Realtor.com does not take agent profile changes from the MLS. You claim and maintain that profile yourself, and updating the photo in the MLS does not push it there. It is a mechanical reason old faces persist online rather than a sign that anybody forgot.
Can I put my photo in the listing photos?
Not on the largest MLS in the country. CRMLS prohibits agent, broker and brokerage names and photos inside listing images, along with phone numbers, messages and images of people not directly related to the listing, and reserves the right to remove them. The face lives on the sign, the profile and the roster page, which is why those crops matter as much as they do.
How often should the photo be replaced?
No state commission rule was found requiring a licensee photograph to be current, so the honest answer is that the trigger is not a calendar. It is a brokerage move. The median agent has thirteen years in the business and six with their current firm, which means the typical career has already rebranded every sign, card and profile at least once.
The sign goes up before anybody meets you.
8 photos free, enough for this shoot and a spare. Crop one to the circle and one to the landscape panel and see which frames you would rather have started from.
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