The Designer can only be as believable as the photo under it. A few habits make a big difference.

Decide which areas you want to design. You can add one photo (view) per angle to the same design, so you do not need one perfect shot of everything.

1. Stand back. Fit the whole area and some of the house in the frame. The house gives the scale step something to measure against, such as a front door.
2. Hold the phone sideways. The in-app camera tip says to hold your phone sideways at eye level and fit the whole area in the frame.
3. Keep the phone level. A tilted phone tilts the horizon. The camera screen has an “Eye level” guide line to help.
4. Pick the light. The built-in How it works guide suggests a bright, overcast day, or the sun behind you.
5. Clear the foreground if you can. Hoses, bins and toys can be removed later with Remove something, but a cleaner photo needs less cleanup.
6. Shoot each angle you care about. Every view is saved inside the same design. Use Add view.
7. Show some ground. Painted mulch, lawn and stone need visible ground to sit on. Make sure the part you want to change is not hidden behind a car or fence.

When you add your own item from a photo, the guidance is different: step back so the whole item fits, shoot from the side at about waist height rather than from above, use a plain background such as sky, lawn or a wall, and photograph plants in bloom if you can, because VisionScaper hides the flowers out of season. See Add your own item from a photo.

Choose the part you will photograph, such as a flower or a single leaf. Fill the frame with that part, keep it in focus and shoot in daylight. See Plant ID.

• Set the scale (door, garage door, car, person, or “Set it up for me”).
• If the photo is tilted or walls lean in, use the Crop tab: it can straighten the picture and fix vertical and horizontal perspective. It makes a new view and leaves the original view untouched.
• Use the Adjust tab for light and color: Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Temperature, Tint, Saturation, Vibrance, Hue, Greens and Sharpen, plus presets such as Bright & fresh, Golden hour, Lush green, Overcast fix and Soft & airy. Adjustments are not baked in; Reset all undoes them.

• Plants look too big or small: the scale needs a second look. See Set the scale for me.
• Painted ground looks stretched: lower the “Perspective of painted ground” slider. See Paint ground materials.
• The photo is dark: try an Adjust preset or raise Exposure.

• Take or upload a photo of your yard
• Set the scale with "Set it up for me"
• Add and manage views of one design