The camera adds pounds, they say, but it can also do funny things to property. If you are selling your house, be careful how it is presented in photographs, advertisements, agents' brochures, or in virtual tours for the Internet.

A recent photograph that landed on the property desk showed the kitchen of a pleasant suburban house.

Plonked in the middle of the floor was a very unappetising (at least to human viewers) over-full bowl of dog food. Another showed a spattered patio that looked suspiciously like the aftermath of a murder.

If your home is being professionally photographed for brochures or newspaper editorial, you can be sure its good features will look their best and the less appealing parts will be left out.

However, beware the agent who drives by the house to take a couple of snaps. While some agents are adept at taking photographs that avoid the telephone mast behind the house or the electricity sub-station by the gate, some horrors still make it on to brochures and the most stylish interiors can suffer from a bad exposure.

But whatever about the skills of the photographer, there are a lot of things you can do to make your home look well in photographs.

Remember, a photograph will appear small on a brochure, so if a room is full of furniture, and a bit of wall space is covered with pictures of your progeny clutching a degree or getting married, the effect will be more claustrophobic than inviting.

Compare this with the calm, clutter-free interiors of show homes furnished and photographed to make even the tiniest space appear enormous.

Keep one room out of bounds to the photographer so that you can throw any last bits and scraps in there and close the door on them. By the time your house is viewed, you will have divided the clutter between the attic, the bin, your sister and the charity shop.

Even if it is a sweltering day, have a cheery fire burning in the fireplace to entice people into your cosy livingroom.

You don't have to lay a fire - professional photograpers just set some newspaper alight in the grate.

If you have a large or free-standing television, make sure it's switched off and consider removing it altogether as it may dominate a photograph. Flexes trailing from computers and lights can also spoil the look of a room, so stuff them firmly behind the furniture or unplug them and hide the wires.

Lots of people renovate a house from top to bottom and forget to put a shade on a central light. This looks particularly depressing in photographs. Throws tossed casually over old armchairs can look decidedly untidy, so make sure they are neatly tucked in or remove them altogether.

Bedrooms in particular should be spruced up for the camera. Large bedrooms where the bed doesn't dominate will photograph better than smaller rooms.

If it's a small room with a big bed, make sure that the sheets are fresh, the pillows are plumped up and the valence is straight. A sagging bed covered with a crooked candlewick bedspread in a small room may just remind people of their student flat-hunting days.

If your bed is on legs, don't forget to remove all the dusty shoes, used tissues and stray socks from underneath it and introduce the vacuum cleaner to the area.

More and more homes are being opened to the public not just through photographs but on the internet via virtual tours.

Homeowners who agree to this kind of exposure should view the result before it goes live across the world via the Internet.

You don't want to irritate potential buyers by having image files so big they each take five minutes to download - by which time the viewer has already lost interest, moved house and redecorated.

You also need to regulate the speed at which the "eye" moves. One virtual tour I took felt more like a bad day on the Irish Sea in a rubber dinghy. It left me clutching my desk, eyes closed and green around the gills and not at all inclined to go and view the house, even in its stationary condition.

Beware too the live camera that pans mercilessly around a room, highlighting items that might not be noticed in a two-dimensional photograph. One website tour of a house opens with great aplomb showing off the fine exterior and a menu of all the photographs you can look at.

Unfortunately, when you click to view the bathroom, two almost life-size yellow rubber gloves reach out to grab you from the mixer tap they are draped across, while one corner is dominated by a vivid orange box of tampons.

Whether your house is being shown in a virtual tour or a photograph, there are certain things that have to be done.

Make sure all your lights and lamps are working, as well-lit rooms always look better. Have lots of spare bulbs as one is sure to blow as soon as the photographer turns on the light.

Fill the house with flowers, and not just the ubiquitous lily, which often look as though they are about to leap out of a vase. The outside should also look tidy - dead-head those dangling dahlias so they don't look limp and uncared for, hide the bicycle and dustbin, put the car around the corner and sweep up leaves that flutter around the driveway.

Finally, clear out all that stuff you haven't used for six months, bubble-wrap the family photographs (your children will thank you and, just think, viewers won't have the opportunity to snigger at your wedding outfits or wonder whether they've seen you in the supermarket), and make sure the dog has been fed before your home is exposed to the nation's house-hunters.