Pictures not supersizing when under 800 px

[shipscript]

Photos that are below the zoom threshold of 800 pixels on the long side are not supersizing in the black overlay window. They are displaying at the same size as shown in the original gallery at the top left of the listing (usually 500px or 300px).

Here are some example listings:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/380647614391
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222566568053
https://www.ebay.com/itm/384506052063
https://www.ebay.com/itm/173522342318
https://www.ebay.com/itm/314170181646

After a member reported the issue on the forums, I tested this on Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Brave on a desktop computer,  and on their listings and my own. This problem has apparently been ongoing for several weeks, purportedly about the time of the store redo.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/Store-Photos/m-p/33256988

I can copy the URL of the photo shown in the black overlay, which shows 300 or 500 in the URL suffix. When I change the suffix to 1600, I can see the actual size is larger than 300 or 500, but less than 800.  I have tested this on extremely old listings and on newly uploaded photos.

In this listing, https://www.ebay.com/itm/384506052063 the first photo is 600px, but is displayed in the gallery at 500px. When I click to open the overlay, the URL on the overlay is also 500.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ng4AAOSwCV5jOGo1/s-l500.jpg

When I change the URL to 1600 (eBay's largest size) and view the image specs, it does show the image is actually 600px.

This behavior was previously exhibited by photos under 640px, which would not open the supersize overlay (and that now do open the overlay, as also exhibited by the first 400px photo in my first link), and thus could only be displayed at the 300 or 500 size shown in the top left gallery. I believe there may be a flag set, or missing, on these images, just as, years ago, a flag had to be set to make supersize and zoom work.

[shipscript]

To facilitate understanding the prior post,

https://www.ebay.com/itm/380647614391
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222566568053
https://www.ebay.com/itm/384506052063
https://www.ebay.com/itm/173522342318
https://www.ebay.com/itm/314170181646

the images in the previously linking listings can be extracted and viewed at their largest available size using this simple tool:

https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?380647614391
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?222566568053
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?384506052063
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?173522342318
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?314170181646

[nikita1313]

Hi, I've been with Ebay since it first started, I don't have a store but I do listings a few times a month from my Desktop computer only. just got back from 10 day vacation, now forced to use the new listing tool which I Hate because you cannot save the templates to reuse later if needed. I'm writing because I don't have the supersize nor the zoom feature anymore. I am using the same digital camera, take pics using 640 x480 size. I have a website the photos enlarge to be 7 x 5", I could use a diff setting of 1280 x 1024 but I'd be afraid it would be a hardship to resize for my website and certainly do not want to take extra photos of same item. I am older with poor vision now. In Ebay the photos which were OK, now have became too tiny for even myself to check detail or if they look good. The main Gallery photo in my newest listing was an enlargement I put on showing my items face but not getting zoom or supersize on any other photos below it. My older listings had the feature and when relisted the feature of supersize nor zoom isn't there either. By the info you have shouldn't I be able to get at least  a supersize on the other photos when you click on them? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. here are two listing #s. Thanks Donna

new listing using newer listing tool:    275487397694

older listed as similar :  275482865658

[shipscript]

@nikita1313 

As you state, it does not matter which listing tool is used to upload the photos. Both old and new photos are affected.

The screenshots below show that your image displays on eBay's overlay at only 500 px (left, using Firefox Inspector), when the actual photo stored by eBay is 640 px (right, using the image extraction tool)

We need to get this problem to the attention of eBay, as it appears to affect all listings with photos that are less than 800 px on the long side. devon@ebay 

Example listing where the supersize overlay appears, but the image is shown at the same size as on the listing gallery (300px or 500px, depending on browser).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275482865658

The following tool measures actual largest available version of the photos:
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?275482865658

I have various sizes in this old test listing that can facilitate testing:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/380647614391
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?380647614391

[devon@ebay]

---

@shipscript wrote:

@nikita1313 

As you state, it does not matter which listing tool is used to upload the photos. Both old and new photos are affected.

The screenshots below show that your image displays on eBay's overlay at only 500 px (left, using Firefox Inspector), when the actual photo stored by eBay is 640 px (right, using the image extraction tool)

We need to get this problem to the attention of eBay, as it appears to affect all listings with photos that are less than 800 px on the long side. devon@ebay 

Example listing where the supersize overlay appears, but the image is shown at the same size as on the listing gallery (300px or 500px, depending on browser).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/275482865658

The following tool measures actual largest available version of the photos:
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?275482865658

I have various sizes in this old test listing that can facilitate testing:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/380647614391
https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ShowLargestListingPhoto.htm?380647614391

---

Hey @shipscript! Thank you for sharing this information and I will be sure to get this over to our Listing Tools Team. If there are any updates or if they are needing anything else I will be sure to let you know! 

[nicerman]

This new system is a disaster.  I have always (25 years) added photos to my description.  I prefer doing this in addition to the 12 allowed by eBay at the top of the listing.  Now when I try to add enlarged photos in my description I get a message saying that I have exceeded the maximum space allowed in the description.  I can usually add one photo but trying a second one results in the "no can list" message.

[shipscript]

@nicerman 

This is a different issue than addressed in this thread, but we'll go ahead and take that detour, since it could help others.


THIRD PARTY HOSTED:

I see that you have used Photobucket in the past; but  5 years ago, eBay banned third-party enlargements that open in a new window, so that does not work as well as it used to.  You can still use third-party hosting, but must start with the largest image or use a lot of CSS to create a clickable gallery. The new listing tool now limits the amount of coding that will succeed.


DESKTOP EMBEDDING:

I also see that some of your description images are not hosted online, and that is the limit you are seeing.

The description has always been limited to 500,000 characters of HTML code and text (most listings use no more then 10,000 characters). That has not been changed in perhaps 15 years or more. I tested  and confirmed that limit again 2 days ago on the new listing tool. If you are dragging and dropping a photo from your desktop to your description (without using an online image host), as apparent in your newest listing, the image will be base64-encoded in the HTML. 

It doesn't take much of an image to exceed the 500,000 character code limit (~500KB).  I guesstimated that an image that is roughly 360KB on your desktop may convert to about 500KB when base64 encoded. If you want to embed images this way, then either choose smaller images or compress the images a lot more to get their file sizes lowered.

Here is an online tool that will base64 encode images. Use it to add up the sizes of all of your embedded images (keeping in mind that the rest of your description adds to that total).
https://www.isdntek.com/imagetools/Base64ImageEncoder.htm


EMBED EBAY URS:

The method I use to embed images within the description is to capture the photo URLs that have already been uploaded to eBay, and insert their URLs using the HTML tab of the description editor.  They'll load faster because eBay has already loaded them in the top picture gallery. These images can even be used in a click-to-enlarge gallery in the description.

During listing creation, right-click the image and copy the Image link or Image URL or Image location (different browsers may state it differently).



Then switch to the HTML view on the description editor, where we are currently required to click through a lot of options to get there:



Within the HTML view, the image code must be constructed, like this:

<img src="">

Then the eBay URL can be inserted between the quotes.


EBAY IMAGE CODES:

See this thread for more details on picking the best image size:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-to-Embed-Photos-in-Item-Description/m-p/30497223#M1523820

[nikita1313]

Any idea if Ebay Techs are working on this photo problem of not being able to see the supersize of each photo with desktop users' pictures we load in. I tried using the photo Expander suggested previously in the help are , from ZippyHelp. It did have some smart tools for later us like watermarking but didn't do anything for my photo size to make them bigger to view except make them as small as ebay now shows on my listing, possibly it made them smaller in size, not bigger. 

       I am also noticing when I do a listing to sell an item, I'm no longer able to save the template. It would appear after I did the listing, as in "Save as Template" so I could modify or see it much later. 

Thank you, Donna