Getting Your Item Ready For Auction Part 3

Make Money With eBay Guide

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This article is intended to provide you with information about getting your items ready for auction on eBay, This is page 3 of 3. Please leave us comments, questions, or success stories so that we can improve this guide.

Your best bet when taking pictures is using a digital camera that will shoot detailed close-ups. Your next best option is to use a film camera that will take similar close-ups. With either option consider your presentation as far as background and angles.

Using a Digital Camera
Shooting with a digital camera gives you the luxury of looking at your pictures instantly whether in the camera viewer or on your computer’s monitor. Knowing what the image looks like immediately allows you to make corrections by taking another shot, or several from different angles to choose which you like the best.

Take Your Pictures in JPG
Many digital cameras will allow you to take pictures in different formats. If your camera will allow different formats select the format for email or JPG. Internet sites generally only accept certain image formats. The most common are JPG, GIF and NPG. The JPG format is best suited for pictures.

If you are not sure whether your camera shoots pictures in various formats, read up in your instruction manual or call customer support for your camera. Their number should be listed in the directions to your camera or online at their web site.

Save Your Pictures in JPG
If your camera does not take pictures in various formats then you should have software that you load onto your computer that will allow you to save your pictures into a JPG format.

Again, if you are not sure how to do this with your camera and the software, call your camera maker’s support line or research in the instruction manual or internet resources.

What to Avoid with Your Pictures

• Blurry, out of focused pictures – particularly close-ups.
• Hot spots – there is a hot spot on the image created by the flash of your camera.
• Distorted views – this is when the shot is taken from the top at an angle so the top of the item is distorted proportionally (it shows smaller) from the bottom of the item. This can easily happen when shooting album covers or clothing that is laid out on the floor or table.
• Dark images – and we are not talking about vampires here. This is where the image or part of the image is too dark to see clearly what is displayed in the photo.
• Distorted color – there are going to be some color differences with some photos you take from time to time. What we are referring to here is major color distortions where a red looks like an orange or a purple looks like green.

How Many Pictures is Enough?
That really is up to you. Often one picture of your item is enough. If you believe that additional images are necessary to show an accurate portrayal of your item, particularly to give it greater value then do so. So, for now, take several pictures, save them on your computer and you can pick out the best candidates.

Continue to "The Writing Process".