Whatever is behind you is part of every video call and every stream. For most people that is a blank wall, a door, a wardrobe or an unmade bed. Virtual backgrounds flicker round your hair and swallow your hands. A real backdrop looks better, and the easiest real backdrop is a tapestry.
It is large, light, cheap for its size and matte. It covers what you don't want seen, and it goes up in ten minutes. Here is how to do it well.
Why a tapestry works on camera
- It is big. One piece fills the frame. A camera's view widens with distance, and it takes a lot of wall to fill it.
- It is matte. Fabric doesn't reflect your ring light or your monitor. Framed pictures behind glass do.
- It hides things. A door, shelves, a radiator, a patch of bad paint.
- It is light. It hangs from a few removable hooks, and it can come down again.
- It softens sound a little. Fabric on a hard wall takes some of the echo out of a bare room. It is no substitute for acoustic treatment, and it helps.
- It gives you an identity. Viewers remember the person with the neon city or the nebula behind them.
What size?
The backdrop has to fill everything the camera sees. That depends on how far you sit from the wall and how wide your camera's lens is. A typical webcam, with you sitting about 3 feet from the wall behind you and 2 feet from the camera, sees a strip of wall roughly 6 to 8 feet wide.
- 26 × 36 inches: too small to fill a frame. Use it as one item in a styled background.
- 50 × 60 or 60 × 50 inches: fills the frame for a tight head-and-shoulders shot, if you sit close to it.
- 68 × 80 or 80 × 68 inches: the best choice for most desks. It covers the view of a normal webcam.
- 88 × 104 or 104 × 88 inches: for a wide-angle camera, a standing or full-body shot, or a couch stream.
Our tapestries come in portrait and landscape. Video is wide, so landscape usually fills the frame better. Check the product images to see how the design is cropped in landscape.
The sure way to find out: sit in your usual place, open your camera, and have someone mark the edges of the picture on the wall with painter's tape. Measure between the marks. See the tapestry size guide.
Which design?
You are in front of it. The design has to work with a person covering the middle.
- Choose a design without a central subject. Your head and shoulders will hide the centre. Abstracts, starfields, nebulae, patterns and wide landscapes work. A portrait of a single animal, centred, will appear to be growing out of your head.
- Darker than your face. A dark or mid-toned backdrop makes you stand out, and the camera exposes for you. A very bright backdrop turns you into a silhouette.
- Not too busy. Fine, high-contrast detail behind a moving person is distracting, and video compression turns it into shimmer. Soft, large shapes are better.
- Avoid fine stripes and tight grids. On camera they can produce a rippling effect called moiré.
- Think about your hair and clothes. Dark hair disappears into a black backdrop. Choose something you contrast with.
- For work calls, calm and neutral: a misty landscape, a soft abstract, a night sky. For streaming, anything that suits your channel.
Designs of ours that suit:
- Chrome and Blue. A silver, navy and black swirl. Smart and neutral. Good for work.
- Blue Mountain Fog. Pale and calm.
- Starlight City. A night skyline under stars.
- Purple Pink Wormhole. A spiral whose dark centre sits behind your head, with colour round you like a halo.
- Trippy Holographic. Bright and soft-edged. For a lively channel.
- Star Valley. Dark blue with an aurora above. Sit so that the aurora shows over your shoulder.
Hang it flat
Cameras show every fold. A wrinkled backdrop looks like a bedsheet.
- Take out the creases first. A steamer, or a cool iron on the reverse. See how to wash a tapestry and remove wrinkles.
- Fix it at many points along the top, every 12 inches or so, or hang it over a rod or a strip of wood so that the top edge is straight.
- Pull it taut and fix the bottom corners as well, and the sides if needed.
- Keep it level. A tilted horizon behind you is noticed at once.
See how to hang a tapestry without nails.
Distance
- Sit at least 2 to 3 feet in front of it if you can. Distance stops your shadow falling on it and lets the camera blur it slightly, which is flattering.
- If your desk is against the opposite wall and space is tight, a smaller distance is fine. Light the backdrop evenly to hide shadows.
Lighting
- Light yourself first. A soft light in front of you, slightly above eye level and to one side. A window in front of you is ideal.
- Light the backdrop separately, and less brightly than your face. A lamp aimed at it from the side, or LED strips along the top or sides.
- Coloured light on the backdrop looks good on stream. Cameras exaggerate it, so set it lower than looks right to the eye. See RGB lighting and neon art.
- No bright light behind you pointing at the camera.
- Check on screen. What you see in the room and what the camera shows are different things.
See tapestries with fairy lights and LED strips.
Framing yourself
- Put the camera at eye level.
- Sit so that the most interesting part of the design is beside your head or above your shoulder, not behind it.
- Make sure the tapestry's edges are outside the picture, or clearly and evenly inside it. A strip of bare wall down one side looks accidental.
Not a green screen
A printed tapestry can't be used for chroma key. That needs a flat, even, single colour. A tapestry is the alternative to a virtual background, not a tool for one. If your video software has background blur, a light blur over a real tapestry gives a very good result.
For streamers
- Match the backdrop to your channel colours and your overlays.
- Keep the same backdrop. It becomes part of how people recognise you.
- Our designs are original artwork from our studio, so there is no third-party logo or character behind you.
See gifts for a streamer.
For work calls
- Calm, dark or mid-toned, and without a subject.
- Nothing that will raise a question in a meeting.
- Check both sitting and standing if you use a sit-stand desk. See standing desk setups.
Safety and care
- Keep fabric away from hot lights, heaters and candles. Use LED lights, which run cool.
- Don't cover vents or sockets.
- Wash it when it gets dusty.
The short version
- 68 × 80 inches, in landscape, suits most desks.
- Choose a design with no central subject, darker than your face, and not too busy.
- Steam it and hang it flat and level.
- Light yourself well and the backdrop less.
- Check everything on screen.
Browse the tapestries collection.