Photo tips

So you want to add some photos to your listing. Before we get to that, let’s make sure you look good in those photos.

• Take the photos in a good light. Photos taken under insufficient lighting can look really grainy.
• Use the flash if you’re indoors. Use it at the correct distance. Too close and you are overexposed, too far and it won’t light you up.
• Learn to use the timer if you’re taking photos yourself. Just about every digital camera nowadays has a timer. Read the owner’s manual.
• Center yourself in the photo.
• Fill the frame as much as possible. This may mean being closer to the camera or using the zoom
• Make sure you don’t cut off your head. If you do, there’s nothing you can do to put it back.
• Photos should be in focus. Learn how the focus is supposed to work on your camera.
• Look at the pictures, delete any bad ones, and reshoot.
• Can’t get the camera to take good pictures or pictures in focus? Buy a new one or borrow somebody else’s.
• If you take photos with your cam, make sure you use lots of lighting.

There are lots of things you can do to enhance photos, and if you have the money (and lots of time to learn) I recommend Photoshop. I have Paintshop Pro, which can do a whole lot of things at a good price.

You don’t need to take the time to learn how to do all those things right now. What you need to do to those photos is crop and resize them. You want to trim off any extra space around you, and then you want to make the photo the right size for a listing. Resize a copy of the photo, not the original, then save it with a new name. Don’t resize it by changing the width and height in your image tags. That can make the page load really slowly, and it gives your viewers right-click access to full sized photos without paying for them. Don’t resize photos to make them larger, only smaller. If you need it larger, take a new photo. Enlarged photos look smeary or pixellated.

There are a lot of free image editing apps out there you can use. I haven’t evaluated any, but I know people who have used Photo filtre. Photo filtre studio is a free download trial. The page also has links to the older version. If you want one you can use for free, pick the most recent. I would try the free version before downloading the studio to see if you can use the extra features. In fact, I would wait to download until after you get used to the free one. If you aren’t ready to learn to use some of the more advanced features, you won’t be able to figure out the trial version before it expires.

A free program with more features (but harder to learn) is The Gimp. You will find lots of tutorials for it, but it will be frustrating at first if you aren’t accustomed to using graphics software.