Virtual Real Estate Tour Tips, From the First Panorama to the Last

Buyers keep exploring a virtual tour when nothing in it reminds them they are clicking through pictures: every panorama is sharp, level and well lit whichever way they turn, and every move to the next room lands where they expect, in the same light and colour as the last. Both are settled at the property and in the edit.

When the Buyer Looks Around

Dragging a panorama, a buyer can face any wall of the room, and the ceiling and floor too, so a fault anywhere in it has no edge of the frame to hide behind.

1. Put the Camera on a Tripod, Level and Steady

Grainy panoramas and rooms that lean both come from the equipment. A pocket 360 camera gives a grainier image than one built for tours, and a camera held by hand or set on uneven ground tilts the whole room with it. A sturdy tripod on level ground, with the camera upright and fixed firmly in place, keeps the walls straight and the camera still while it captures.

Which camera to use is part of choosing how to make the tour: hiring a photographer, using a 360 camera with tour software, or using a camera that builds the tour itself. Whichever way you go, a camera that takes still photos as well as panoramas gives the listing its photos and its tour from the same visit.

2. Light the Whole Room, Windows Included

A photographer can turn away from a bright window. A panorama can't, because the window and the darkest corner of the room sit in the same image and the buyer will look at both. Capture in daylight, when the windows bring natural light in, and switch on the main lights as well, so their warmth reaches the corners the daylight misses.

Even then, the view outside is far brighter than the room. One exposure keeps the garden or the corners and loses the other. An HDR capture takes several exposures and merges them, so the trees through the window and the shadow under the table both keep their detail.

3. Leave the Room Before Each Scan

Nothing is behind a 360 camera, so whoever starts the scan ends up in it unless they leave. Start each scan and step out of the room until it finishes, and keep children, pets and anything else that moves out as well. Movement in the space can also throw off the way one scan lines up with the next.

The same goes for whatever was cleared away. Clutter carried out of the living room has to go somewhere no panorama sees, which rules out the hallway the camera passes through next. Staging the house is work of its own, done before the capture, and its last touch is small. Against neutral walls, a plant or a cushion in a strong colour makes a room feel lived in where a bare one feels unwelcoming, and still leaves buyers space to picture it as theirs.

When the Buyer Moves On

Selecting a navigation point takes the buyer to the next panorama. The tour feels like a walk through the house when each move lands where a visitor would stand next, in a room that plainly belongs to the same home.

4. Capture in the Order a Visitor Would Walk

Plan the route before the first scan the way a visitor meets the house: in through the front door, along the hallway, then room by room, finishing one floor before the next and leaving the garden until last. Keep each stop in sight of the one before. Captured that way, the stops follow the route of a viewing, and the buyer's first impression starts at the door, as it would in person.

Too many stops can overwhelm a buyer, though, with clicks through spaces that add nothing. Where the tour software allows it, turn off the spare stops for visitors and keep the captures behind them. A map of the floor beside the panorama then shows buyers where they are and how each room fits into the house.

5. Give Every Room the Same Look

A move from a warm, golden kitchen into a cold, blue hallway breaks the walk. Jumps like that come from the light on the day, daylight in one room and lamps in the next, and from editing each panorama on its own. Edit the panoramas as a set instead: settle the look in one room, carry it to the rest, then compare neighbouring rooms in the order the buyer will see them. Indoor and outdoor panoramas can need different settings, since daylight outside is a different colour from lamplight in a room.

The tour should match the listing photos too, so a buyer who scrolls through the photos and then opens the tour finds the same house in the same colours.

6. Edit Lightly and Check All the Way Round

Editing lifts what the capture got. A little more brightness and contrast makes a room feel welcoming, and a small rise in saturation brings out its colours. Push them too far and the room stops looking real, which defeats the point of a tour. Aim for the room on a good day, somewhere between how it is and how a buyer hopes it will be.

Check every change across the whole panorama. Drag it all the way round and look at the bright windows, the shadows and the places where one area meets the next, because a change made while looking at one wall also applies to the window behind you.

Some of a house's story needs words beside the panoramas: that the hardwood floors are original, the energy-saving features, the walk to the shops. That part comes from what the agent knows.

Level, Lit and Matched in a Giraffe360 Tour

The Giraffe360 camera works on its Auto-Height Tripod and won't capture unless it is connected to it. The camera twists onto the tripod until it locks, which stops it shifting or tilting during a scan, and for each single scan you choose the height on the camera's screen and the tripod moves into position. The tripod setup guide covers pairing the two. The panoramas come back in HDR, with the camera removed from the shot.

The look is set in the panorama editor in Content Studio: in the project's Panoramas, select a panorama and choose Edit. Its Adjustments tab starts from a colour profile, with Exposure, Contrast, Saturation and Temperature to fine-tune it, and you drag the preview round to check the windows and the shadows before you save.

Apply to then carries that look across the tour. Apply to indoors, Apply to outdoors and Apply to all let the inside and the garden each have their own settings, and Copy edits with Paste edits moves the look to one other panorama. Organisation admins and managers can keep a look with Save as new and use it again on the next property.

The virtual tour can also let a buyer arrive the way a visitor does. Where the tour has a property map, Show property map in the tour editor's Settings puts an outdoor map in the tour, and Show area transition points adds markers for the entrances to the building. Selecting an entrance marker opens the indoor panorama behind it.