Photo Sizing and New Male Dress Form

Turns out eBay wants my pictures to be larger. I am going to go with this size for the first listing but will increase it for the next ones.  Turns out there has been a change since the advice listed in my second edition eBay Bible which is from 2005. That’s when I first started thinking about selling all my collections. I assume the increase in storage capabilities and in processor speed are accounting for the increased size recommendation. At least 1,000 pixels on the longest side of each photo. No problem…for the next items. Not re-doing the current listing.

Picked up a new male dress form yesterday! Although it is unfortunately too large for the men’s shirt I want to sell currently, it is quite nicely shaped with a  silver color metal plate atop the neck. It is a bit more elegant than the female forms I bought and I look forward to using it.

Photography figured out!

After much experimentation I figured out how to make some great shots of clothing. I experimented with a Donna Karan silk purple dress I picked up at a thrift store that will be my first item I place on ebay.  I tried a ton of settings on the camera and different lighting angles, also playing with varying amounts of lights. I finally settled on four lights, two clip lights from the front but off to the side and two larger photography lights from my light box on the sides but slightly in front.  Ebay’s book on selling is a great reference filled with tips and guidelines for photography. I am using my Nikon Coolpix 4500, a great little camera I originally purchased for its wonderful macro lens. It has quite a lot of manual and semi-manual settings, as well as automatic and scene settings.  All the advice I read about not using a flash is completely true. It really washes everything out. Despite all my maneuverings I still had to do some editing in iPhoto. Mainly cropping, but also on the color. I was pretty happy to find that I could easily adjust the saturation to get rid of some pink tones and show the true purple tones of the dress. I am still not 100% happy with the results but I think it is good for my first listing.

From there I took two of the main photos into Photoshop (I have CS2) in order to create my main ebay image. I put both images side by side to show a full-length and a close-up view in one image, and then layered my logo on top of them.

Donna Karan Purple Silk Dress

I am pleased with the way it came out. The next step is for a better backdrop than my homemade version. This is on order and should arrive soon!  I think a little more fiddling with camera settings and color correcting is all that is needed. Overall, I am pleased.