Editing Your Photos
Did you know that professional photographers edit practically all their photos? I’m talking pros here! So, don’t be discouraged if after taking all the time to set up perfect shots they turn out…well, less than perfect.
Even if you don’t have expensive editing software, there are easy things you can to to tweak your pics to perfection (or at least close). I know what you’re thinking. You don’t want to have to purchase expensive software to edit your photos. Let me ask you…does FREE fit in your budget?
Meet Google’s Picasa. Picasa is a free download that packs an impressive amount of features. You can perform basic editing like rotating, cropping, straightening and brightening. Plus you can make collages, posters, movies and so much more! It will also gather all the photos on your computer and organize them for you. You will enjoy playing around with Picasa not only for your eBay listing pics but your personal photos as well. (OK, commercial is over.)
If you’ve set up your photos as described earlier this week, you will only have basic editing to do. The purpose of setting up your photos is to minimize editing time. So today we will cover very basic editing: rotating, cropping and brightening.
Rotating
Haven’t you seen photos like this on eBay?
Actually, I’ve seen much worse. This is a good photo that just needs to be rotated. It is annoying to buyers to have to strain their necks to check out your pic. Don’t annoy your buyer from their first look at your item for sale.
Take a second to rotate…
There! Much better!
Cropping
If your shot has distracting things in the background, get rid of them! Here’s a sample shot I just took. You can see my light, floor and my foot. At least my floor is clean, and I recently had a pedicure…but still no one wants to see that!
And after a quick rotate, crop and brightening (which took me about 15 seconds)…
Totally worth 15 seconds of “work”, don’t you think?
Brightening
A quick adjustment to the lighting can improve a shot as well. Picasa makes it very easy with a slide bar adjustment labeled “Fill Light”. You can see the changes to your photo while you are making them. Nothing becomes permanent until you click “apply”.
Here is a screenshot of Picasa’s basic editing tools.
This is the screen you work in to edit your photos.
Well, there you have only the basics. You can do so much more with editing. If you enjoy it, the best way to learn is to just play around with it.
I hope you have gained a few nuggets of photo knowledge this week. Thanks to all who have commented! You have helped make my first blogging experience a positive one.
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Thanx for the info. I must admit I edit every single picture I take. I have never used picasa but will have to look into it. Sounds easy to use.
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Phyllis, don’t feel bad-I think we all should edit EVERY picture we take!!
I think maybe 1/200 pictures I take is good enough SOTC (straight out of the camera). There’s always room for improvement.
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I edit every single picture, too! My DH says I’m too much of a perfectionist.
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I’m all about editing my pics too. As the saying goes…”a picture is worth a thousand words”, and that couldn’t be more true on eBay. I don’t buy very much on eBay, but when I am looking for something, if I can’t get a really good feel for the item, I’m moving on to someone else’s listing. That’s what I try to keep in mind when editing my own pics.
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I normally use Photoshop to edit, but recently started playing with Picassa (more for personal stuff) It is great for basic editing. Plus it is easy to then send your photos to your Picassa web album, which you can then add the links to your eBay templates.
Also if you use it for personal photos it has a new facial recognition feature where you name people in a photo, then it finds more like that and starts to help you categorize them! We love that feature.
I had some doll and toy pictures and it categorized them, too.
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Thanks for the great post!
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