لطفا منتظر باشید ...
5.1 Hacks #55-64
There are no two ways about it: a photo
can make or break an auction.
Attractive, clear, well-composed photos will excite your customers
and get you more money for your items. Poor photos, however, will
make your item and therefore your auction less
desirable. And having no photo is tantamount to auction suicide. None
of this should surprise you. But there's a lot to
think about when it comes to taking photos, transferring them to your
computer, preparing the files, and putting them in your auctions.
See [Hack #55] and [Hack #56] for tips on taking good auction
photos.
5.1.1 Getting Photos into Your Computer
Probably the biggest hurdle that most sellers face is getting photos
into their computers. In most cases, this involves an investment, not
only of money for equipment, but of time taking photos and preparing
them properly. If you do it right, though, the investment will more
than pay for itself in a very short time.
The first step
involves taking the photos, as explained in [Hack #55]. Naturally, this requires a
camera, and in this department you have several options:
Easily the best choice for taking auction photos, a digital camera
allows you to see your results immediately and get your photos online
quickly.
Better digital cameras have better optics and take higher-resolution
photos (more megapixels); the one you choose depends on your budget
and your needs. But since the largest auction photos are typically no
bigger than 800 x 600, which translates to only about 0.5
megapixels, the camera's resolution will not be that
important. If you're shopping for a camera
specifically for shooting auction photos, look for one with a good
macro (close-up) lens.
|
If a digital camera seems expensive, consider that the extra money
you'll get for your items by having good photos will
more than pay for a digital camera (which you can buy used on eBay!).
An alternative is to buy a video-conferencing camera the kind
that sits on top of your monitor and connects directly to your USB
port. Since they have no internal memory, no LCD screens, and no
optics to speak of, these cameras are remarkably cheap (with prices
starting at under $10), and most support taking snapshots of at least
640 x 480. Make no mistake, however the quality is
pretty lousy, so it should be used only if you have no other choice
at the moment.
Never fearfilm purists among us will not be left out in the
cold. Flatbed scanners are cheap and relatively easy to use, and
allow you to transform any print into an image file in about a
minute.
Furthermore, many film developers include CDs (or floppies) with film
processing, sometimes at no additional cost. The quality is nothing
to write home about, but it's convenient
nonetheless. You can also send your undeveloped film to an online
photo service, such as Kodak's Ofoto (www.ofoto.com) or Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com). In a few days,
you'll be able to download high-quality scans from
their web site.
Any way you do it, however, you'll be subject to the
limitations of film photography, namely the film and developing
costs, and, of course, the wait. With digital, you know right away if
the picture came out, which can be especially hard to predict when
taking close-up auction photos.
5.1.2 Image Editors
Regardless of
how you take your photos and get them into your computer,
you'll eventually end up with one or more image
files. But before you send them to eBay or upload them to your web
server (as described in [Hack #59]),
you'll need to prepare your images, and for that,
you'll need an image editor.
A good image editor will be able to do the following:
Read, write, and convert all popular image file formats (see the next
section)
Basic image manipulation, such as crop, resize, and rotate
Basic touch-up, including clone, line, and text tools
Basic color adjustments, such as contrast, brightness, and color
balance
Batch processing (converting or modifying a group of files in one
step)
Here are some of the image editors currently available, including
both free and commercial applications:
Easily the best photo editor available, Photoshop will do just about
anything you'll ever need when it comes to
processing auction photos. The Windows and Macintosh versions are
practically identical, meaning that the Photoshop-specific
instruction in this book (which covers Version 7) should be easy to
follow. The down side is that Photoshop is rather expensive, and is
probably overkill for most eBay sellers.
Essentially a scaled-down version of Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop
Elements offers many of the basic functions without the
sophistication or the steep learning curve of its older
cousin at a fraction of the price.
Although not nearly as capable as Photoshop, Paint Shop
Pro's strengths lie in its support for every
conceivable image format and its ability to easily and quickly
convert between them. Supports Windows only.
A free image editor for Windows with a good assortment of tools.
Also free, IrfanView is a basic image viewer with some image
manipulation tools.
A free image editor for Unix, Windows, Macintosh, and even OS/2!
iPhoto and MS Paint are free image editors that come with Mac OS X
and Windows, respectively. Although they support only rudimentary
functionality, these programs have the significant advantages of
being free and already installed on your computer.
Most of the specific instruction in this chapter covers Photoshop
and, where applicable, Paint Shop Pro. Although most image editors
work similarly to these programs, the usage and location of the
various features will likely be a little different. Refer to the
documentation included with your favorite image editor for details on
its tools and capabilities.
5.1.3 Image Formats
Of all the
different image file formats, the only one you should ever use for
your photos is the JPG (pronounced
"jay-peg") format. JPG files
support 24-bit color, which is sufficient to reproduce all the hues
you'll ever need for auction photos. JPG files also
support compression (discussed in the next section), which means that
they will be smaller and will load more quickly than the same images
stored in most other formats.
Other image file formats you might encounter include:
GIF
GIF files support
only 8-bit color (256 shades with an adaptive palette), which makes
for pretty lousy photos. But GIF also has
"lossless" compression (as opposed
to the lossy compression used by JPG), which means that
it's a better choice for logos, drawings, and text.
GIF images are supported by all web browsers.
BMP
The Windows Bitmap format is the default format used by MS Paint, the
rudimentary image editor included with Microsoft Windows. Not all web
browsers support BMP files, and with good reasonthe
BMP format doesn't support compression, so even the
smallest photos consume huge amounts of data. Never put BMP images in
web pages.
TIF (or TIFF)
TIFF is the default file format for many flatbed scanners. If your
scanner supports JPG but your JPG scans look bad, it's
because your scanner software doesn't allow you to
adjust the JPG compression, explained in the next section. In this
case, your best bet is to save your scans as TIFF files and convert them with a
suitable image editor (covered in the previous section).
PNG
The PNG format has
all the advantages of JPG with some of the added features of GIF
(such as animation). Unfortunately, the format was established years
after the web browser, so many older browsers don't
support it. In a few years, when the older browsers have mostly
disappeared, PNG files will be a better choice.
Any decent image editor should be able to convert files between any
of these image file formats.
5.1.4 Preparing Images for eBay
Before
you put a photo in your auction, you'll want to take
the following steps:
Crop the image to remove anything that isn't for
sale.
Resize the image. If you're using
eBay's Picture Services to host your photo, the
image doesn't need to be any larger than 400
x 300 (or 800 x 600 if you're
using the "supersize" option).
Although eBay will shrink your photo down for you, it will turn out
better if you do it yourself. Plus, you'll have less
data to send when it's time to start the auction.
If you have access to a web server and can host your own photos [Hack #59], you have more freedom as to the
size of your photos. But it's still a good idea to
keep your images no larger than 800 x 600; otherwise, your
bidders may be annoyed by photos that take too long to load and run
off the sides of their screens.
If necessary, touch up the photo using any of the techniques outlined
in [Hack #57].
Save your photo as a JPG file. See Dialing in the JPG Compression for more information.
Dialing in the JPG Compression
The JPG file
format supports adjustable "lossy"
compression, which means that some information is lost when the image
is compressed. The higher the level of compression, the more data is
thrown away, and the worse the resulting photo will look. Conversely,
a lower compression level will provide crisper photos, but at a cost:
the resulting files are larger and take longer to load.
A good compromise is somewhere in the middle, with a slight bias
toward better quality. The confusing part is that different programs
represent compression levels differently. For example, the
"quality" setting in Adobe
Photoshop ranges from 0 to 12, with 7 typically being a reasonable
compromise. In Paint Shop Pro, the "compression
factor" ranges from 1 to 99, with 15 being a good
compromise. And digital cameras typically have three settings: Fine,
Normal, and Basic, with Normal often being the best compromise.
You may wish to perform a few experiments before settling on a single
compression level. For instance, one of the example 300 x
225 photos in this chapter saved with the lowest quality setting
(representing the highest level of compression) produced a 17 KB file
and a miserable-looking image. Conversely, the same image saved at
the highest quality setting (and least compression) produced a 50 KB
file. While the high-quality image looked excellent, it was virtually
indistinguishable from the same image saved with a medium-quality
setting of 7, which topped out at only 27 KB (roughly half the size).
Naturally, your mileage will vary with the photos you take and the
software you use. Note that eBay's Picture Services,
explained in [Hack #59], tends to
over-compress photos, which may be reason enough to host them
yourself.
When your photos are ready to go, the last step is to put them on the
Web so they will appear in auction photos. The easiest way to do this
is to use eBay's Picture Services, which allows you
to upload the files to eBay as part of the Sell Your Item form. If
you want more control, however, you may want to host your own photos
[Hack #59].
