AUCTION FAQ: Photo Tips

TreeBay

It's often said that a picture speaks a thousand words, and this certainly applies to online auctions, too. Presenting your item attractively will help turn browsers into bidders.

Here are a few tips for photographing your items for sale.

1. Use a simple background to make your subject "pop". A contrasting color may be helpful. Some cameras will underexpose white backgrounds and overexpose dark ones, so if you run into trouble, use a neutral grey or medium blue background.

2. Try to minimize shadows by shooting in even, broad light - like outdoors in open shade. Using a flash may give you harsh shadows. Windowlight is often quite good, but if you have a skylight in your shooting room, you're home free.

3. Include additional views and details. If your camera offers a close-up or "macro" feature you can use that to get sharp pictures of interesting things like the signature on a pot, flower on a plant or detail of an attractive rootbase.

4. Square your image up by using a tripod. Even a cheap one will work for a light digital camera. The goal is to get the horizon level and have a proper perspective. Zoom in or move the camera so that your subject takes up most of the frame.

5. Photo sizes - Images uploaded to the Auctions area can be up to 200 Kbytes, so if you have a multi-megapixel camera you'll need to make them a bit smaller to upload. Don't worry too much about the precise size because the photos will be resized automatically after upload. Just get them down to about 600-800 pixels.

You can do this right from windows XP if you don't have a graphics program.

Right click the photo, select Send To ->Mail Recipient then click the SHOW MORE OPTIONS link and choose MAKE MY PICTURES SMALLER and either the Medium (800x600) or Large (1024x768 ) size. Now click OK. A mail message will come up. You can either address that to yourself and click send or drag the new attachments right to your desktop, or right click on the attachment and save it to a directory where you can upload it with your auction. Just be sure they came up under 200K (each) in size.

Please share your problems and suggestions here.

Regards,

Matt

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