I photographed a home on Saturday up in the Sandia mountains east of Albuquerque where I live. When I got there I did not really notice that the living room curtains were up and had not been dropped down for a more natural look. Fighting the snow to get into the vacant home I shot it without noticing the drapes.

Later that afternoon when I got home I received the dreaded email from the agent. “The pictures would have been perfect had the curtains looked right.” So I am thinking… like 3 hours minimum to drive back up, deal with the snow, reshoot and do post again.

I had a brilliant idea! Redo the living room with some virtual staging and send her a few of those pics. Would take me 30 minutes and I remain on my couch! Long story short, the agent was blown away at the creativity of my solution and loved it.

So, the cool thing here is that we can use the virtual staging software for some editing of things that don’t convey with the house such as furniture, pictures, plants and accessories.
To do this with your RTV virtual staging software however we have to get past first base. That’s right… straightening and calibration is the dreaded step one of this staging platform. So I did a 5 minute recap on the webinar in December and will do a quick recap again next time. Each webinar I will take my 5 minutes to take it just a bit further. While a couple of things have changed on the platform the calibration and straightening features are still similar. Please take a moment to watch this 5 minute training video to help with uploading and calibration.
TRAINING VIDEO

The other thing I went over on the virtual staging webinar was how to change the height of wall items such as TV’s and pictures. Once you are staging the picture you can always go to upper left menu and click on “recalibrate” and raise or lower the ceiling height. If you raise the ceiling height in the numerical field then items will drop lower in the picture. Likewise if you lower ceiling height in the numerical field it will raise wall items. If the furniture in general looks too large in the room… just  raise the ceiling height. On a personal note, I generally like to set the ceiling height at approximately 12 inches or more higher than it actually is (but that is just my preference).

I am happy to help any of you at any time with questions as you get into staging your vacant properties.

RTV has had thousands of homes staged by their photographers in the few months they have offered virtual staging to their virtual tour photographers. They have examples if you have not staged any yet. Give sellers and agents a choice and watch your income increase.

To help launch this we will be continuing a bi-weekly contest on the RTV Facebook page for the best virtually staged home. The weekly winner will receive 20 free credits to stage 2 rooms for free! Stay tuned for the contest details next week.

Go ahead and create your best staging job to submit here: https://stager.virtualhousestaging.com/#houses

Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,

Jim

RTV Virtual Staging Team
866-947-8687