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by
Kevin Savetz
Can you squeeze a recognizable
image into a tiny 96-pixel square space? If you use eBay's
"Gallery" feature, you'll be asking yourself that very
question. Luckily, the answer is yes--and it's not too
difficult, either. Read on for more information on how to create
effective Gallery images.
Picture
Perfect
First, the basics: eBay's Gallery section allows buyers to
browse pictures of products rather than relying solely on text
descriptions. For many items, it makes sense to grab 'em with an
image. For example, a photo of a painting might attract more
bidders than the words "unique oil painting."
In addition, Gallery
items are more visible and just might lead to higher bids for
your items. In fact, eBay claims that items in the Gallery get
25 percent to 200 percent more bids than ones that aren't. The
site charges 25 cents (plus the regular listing fees, of course)
to include your item in the Gallery. Also of note: You cannot
add your listing to the Gallery after an auction has begun.
Size
Matters
Since Gallery images are so small--exactly 96 pixels wide and 96
pixels tall--you've got to take care to assure the image will be
clear once it has been shoehorned into that space. If you submit
a larger picture for display in the Gallery, eBay will scale the
picture down with little regard for the quality of the final
product. So if you can spare two minutes, create the Gallery
image yourself and get your quarter's worth.
Start with a clear
picture of the item you're selling. Select the best part of the
image and crop it tightly. Leave out any extraneous
background--the Gallery image will be small, so a closely
cropped image will provide much-needed detail. In fact, you
might want to crop the Gallery image to a single part of the
item--for instance, rather than showing a tiny grandfather
clock, show just its face in the Gallery image.
Keep the cropped image
as square as possible, to reduce distortion. Now--and here's the
magic part--use your graphics program's "Scale" or
"Resize" function to reduce the image to 96-by-96
pixels. With any luck, you should now have a tiny but
recognizable picture of your item. If your graphics program has
filters, try using the "sharpen" filter to make the
picture a little crisper. Be careful not to copy over your
original, larger image when you save the Gallery image. (I speak
from hard-earned experience.)
By the way, only JPG,
BMP, and TIF files can be used in eBay's Gallery--no GIFs
allowed. I recommend using JPG exclusively for all your auction
images--BMP and TIF are going the way of the dodo. For more
information about the Gallery, check out eBay's Gallery
Frequently Asked Questions page.
Using
Thumbnails
Yahoo Auctions and Amazon.com Auctions have a similar feature,
called "thumbnails." There's no separate thumbnail
gallery. Instead, items with pictures randomly appear as
thumbnails in category listings. In the case of Yahoo Auctions,
if you store your photos on Yahoo's server when adding your
item, the first photo that you upload is the one that will be
used as the thumbnail. Thumbnail dimensions are more flexible
than on eBay, with a maximum of 200 pixels wide by 100 pixels
tall. If that first image is larger, it will be automagically
shrunk when Yahoo uses it as a thumbnail.
Back to Auction tips &
tactics
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