How to photograph a room so virtual staging looks real

Virtual staging is only as good as the photo you start with. A clean, bright, level photo produces convincing furniture. A dark, crooked or distorted photo produces furniture that looks pasted in. These are the things that matter most.

1. Shoot from a corner

Standing in a corner and shooting diagonally shows two walls and the floor plan. It gives the staging software depth to place furniture in. Straight-on shots from a doorway flatten the room.

2. Keep the camera level and at 4 to 5 feet

A level camera keeps walls vertical, which helps furniture sit correctly. Chest height shows the floor area, which is where furniture goes. Shooting from eye height or above hides the floor and makes furniture look strange.

3. Show the floor

Include as much floor as you can. Staging needs floor space to place rugs, tables and beds. If a photo is mostly walls and ceiling, the results will look cramped.

4. Use bright, even light

• Turn on every light and open every blind.
• Shoot in daylight, ideally not directly into the sun.
• Avoid hard shadows and orange-cast bulbs. Match bulbs if you can.
• Bracket exposures or shoot HDR so windows are visible without the room going dark.

5. Do not shoot ultra-wide

Ultra-wide lenses stretch the edges and make rooms look larger than they are. Staged furniture then looks distorted at the edges. Stay between 16 and 24 mm equivalent, and keep the room honest.

6. Empty means empty

Remove stray items such as boxes, cords, buckets and tools before the shoot. Leftover clutter confuses the software, which may try to blend it into the furniture.

7. Take more than one angle

Take two angles per room. You may prefer one for staging and use the other in the gallery. It also gives you a fallback if one result has an odd detail.

8. Do not stage tiny or oddly shaped photos

Very small close-ups, hallways and closets rarely benefit from staging. Stage rooms where buyers ask 'what would I do with this space?'

9. Check the result

Look at every staged image before you publish. Check that furniture is sized correctly, nothing blocks a door or window, and nothing looks warped. Re-run any image that looks off.

If a photo is a poor candidate, say so early. It is faster to reshoot a room than to fix a bad photo.