Unified Listing Experience - Image Clean Up Tool

[valueaddedresource]

I know plenty of people have already expressed their dislike for the way the new listing experience requires so many extra clicks, so I won't beat that dead horse. Instead I'll focus on pictures (pun fully intended).

We all know just how important pictures are to the success of your listing - they can literally be worth a thousand words, or a thousand dollars.

The first thing I noticed is there is no longer an obvious place to add pictures from a URL (which can be helpful for multi-channel sellers who have pictures hosted on their direct sites) and also no obvious "delete" button.

I tested with  few random image links and it looks like it does still work if you paste the URL in "file name."

If you need to delete pictures, you have to click "edit" first.

Harry Temkin has spent a lot of time talking about the Image Clean Up tool for removing backgrounds in images to make them more web friendly. Bringing this tool to desktop users was supposed to be one of the main benefits of the Unified Listed Experience.

I chose a stock photo of headphones and a camera on a table to test it out - seeking to replicate what some sellers may try to do with this tool.

Original

After Image Clean Up

Ok, so the tool obviously had some difficulty separating the background and foreground colors in this one. eBay has built in some tools to help with that too.

The brush icon on the left allows you to "paint" an area that was deleted to bring it back.  The problem is, since it was deleted, it's impossible to know exactly where to paint to get only the areas you want back in the picture. You can't control size of the brush and there's also a bit of lag, so it's difficult to get consistent results.

               

The eraser icon allows you to "paint" an area to erase. Zooming in helps a little, but again you can't control the size of the brush and it's very difficult to cut out just the area you want, but leave the rest.

Bottom line for me - I will personally never use the Image Clean Up tool.  If it's likely you may end up having to retake the picture on a different background, or spend a lot of time trying to edit and refine the results, you might as well save yourself the time and frustration and just use your favorite photo editing tool in the first place.

As for the Unified Listing Experience as a whole, similar to the Listing Quality Report, there appears to be a pretty big disconnect between the product development teams and actual users. 

Hopefully @Anonymous and his team are open to feedback on this and willing to listen to what sellers really need and how they use the platform on a daily basis to conduct business.

[m60driver]

Temkin is a tembel and the person most responsible for hundreds of small sellers moving sales to other platforms.  He listens to nobody but his inner demons edging him on in his futile quest for Bezos level glory.  Just use Gimp to edit your images.

[dhbookds]

Thanks for the info........I've been looking for the clean up tool just to try it...... finally see some editing available on some uploaded photos so will play with it before long.........

[valueaddedresource]

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@dhbookds wrote:

Thanks for the info........I've been looking for the clean up tool just to try it...... finally see some editing available on some uploaded photos so will play with it before long.........

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no problem @dhbookds  -  Let us know how your pictures turn out!

It may work better on some pictures if the background is easier to differentiate, hopefully.  My goal with that test was to see what would happen if someone just did something like put an item on their dining room table and took a picture.  I don't think it's going to be quite up to that task in most cases.

I'm definitely interested to hear what other sellers think of the tool though, especially details about what they did if they are able to get better results. 😊

[dhbookds]

First...........I don't anticipate using it much.......we have clean backgrounds/white or black......and sell used stuff, so frankly I don't want the pictures to look like catalog pictures.

Down and dirty attempt.....wasn't too bad....... a book/next to its box/next to a coke can (size reference)...... all was good....except coke can got mostly wiped out........

Not too much time or energy tonite........but I like playing with new things so will come back to it tomorrow or so.

[yuzuha]

Maybe I'm crazy, but this seems like a heck of a lot of work to get the same effect that could be achieved by simply putting the item on a solid white/black background when photographing it. What am I missing here?

[valueaddedresource]

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@dhbookds wrote:

First...........I don't anticipate using it much.......we have clean backgrounds/white or black......and sell used stuff, so frankly I don't want the pictures to look like catalog pictures.

Down and dirty attempt.....wasn't too bad....... a book/next to its box/next to a coke can (size reference)...... all was good....except coke can got mostly wiped out........

Not too much time or energy tonite........but I like playing with new things so will come back to it tomorrow or so.

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@dhbookds  I like playing with new things too. 🤣 The best part of getting new "stuff" is the set up in my opinion - love digging in and and figuring out how things work.

Glad to hear your down and dirty first attempt wasn't too bad.

[valueaddedresource]

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@yuzuha wrote:

Maybe I'm crazy, but this seems like a heck of a lot of work to get the same effect that could be achieved by simply putting the item on a solid white/black background when photographing it. What am I missing here?

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@yuzuha  - that's a fair question and basically the gist of my feelings on it as well.

I would guess most sellers who care about/want to have solid backgrounds or more editing functions are already doing those things in a way that is easier and/or gets better results.  I would also guess most sellers who don't care or want to have those things will not use this tool.

[nuclearomen]

short and sweet lesson here to learn, if Adobe can't do this in their applications, why on earth would people believe ebay (lol of all people) can develop a better background removal tool... lol...please, this was a joke from moment they announced it a year ago.  

[yuzuha]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@yuzuha  - that's a fair question and basically the gist of my feelings on it as well.

I would guess most sellers who care about/want to have solid backgrounds or more editing functions are already doing those things in a way that is easier and/or gets better results.  I would also guess most sellers who don't care or want to have those things will not use this tool.

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Yes, those are my thoughts too. The people who care about that sort of thing are the ones who are already doing it and don't need a tool to do so - they're either taking photos on a solid background or using a dedicated image editing program like Photoshop.

[nuclearomen]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@yuzuha  - that's a fair question and basically the gist of my feelings on it as well.

I would guess most sellers who care about/want to have solid backgrounds or more editing functions are already doing those things in a way that is easier and/or gets better results.  I would also guess most sellers who don't care or want to have those things will not use this tool.

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Yes, those are my thoughts too. The people who care about that sort of thing are the ones who are already doing it and don't need a tool to do so - they're either taking photos on a solid background or using a dedicated image editing program like Photoshop.

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Ideally, those selling with a more "professional" approach to their listings photos are doing two things, 1 photographing items in a more "professional" manner, either using a background drop, have a "set up" for their visual presentation, or they are using a one color background setting (backdrop, or other means to achieve it). Then downloading the photos to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or using some other photo editing application of their own or online to final edit photos. Ebay rolled this photo tool out a year ago on mobile only... made kinda sense there as many people do everything from their phones these days and don't have access to programs like Adobe...though you can get mobile phone app for free from adobe with your subscription (it's limited to the desktop version though). They claimed it worked great, i never believed it.

I use Adobe and even though Adobe has special tools (various actually for background removal and full tutorials to be able to use them) none of them are actually as easy as "select and remove" notion. It takes practice and understanding of various other tool and settings in the application to do it right. I developed a different method in adobe for this, requires no removal of background, just simply adjustments to the image levels, brightness/contrast, and selective color adjustment tool. I use a white background for my photos, but I use my iPhone to photograph items, sometimes depending on the light and the day in question, the white background comes out darker and the image needs to be "whitened" up - same result in the end as background removal idea what I do but I don't want to remove the background, just brighten and clean the already white background up. Customers don't want to see images of items in the "stock" manner... on amazon or walmart people expect that, but on ebay it's different culture, people want to see the condition of items. Placing everything with background removed images takes the unique aspect of items with background and gives it a feeling of fake. All IMO of course, but studies have been done on this. 

[farmalljr]

Once upon a time, I used mostly mobile to list. I never did like the background removal tool, as it did what your examples show. Very unclean and crude. 

I do ALL of my photos now in solid backgrounds, with a Nikon J5. I do use the tools to crop or brighten my photos, but that's the extent of my editing. Really, if someone is serious about selling, that's what they will need to do. No good way around it. 

It's not faster, using a camera and desktop, but it certainly does make much better photos. 

[gjs_16]

I doubt most sellers here have a really intricate knowledge of web design, and I mean down to load times and optimization and connections and what it all means in terms of traffic...

By hosting your images outside of ebay you're adding an extra connection for the buyer's browser to navigate (+2 seconds load times)... On load times:  When a page is loading, visitors begin to leave after SIX seconds, so +/-2 seconds can be crucial.
Further, there's an extra chance for broken images.

[valueaddedresource]

@gjs_16  I was referring to just loading the image to Ebay from a URL instead of having the file saved to your computer. If you load images that way, they are still hosted on eBay.

But you are absolutely correct if you embed images hosted elsewhere in your description it can definitely affect load time.

[firesteel_surplus]

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@yuzuha wrote:

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@yuzuha  - that's a fair question and basically the gist of my feelings on it as well.

I would guess most sellers who care about/want to have solid backgrounds or more editing functions are already doing those things in a way that is easier and/or gets better results.  I would also guess most sellers who don't care or want to have those things will not use this tool.

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Yes, those are my thoughts too. The people who care about that sort of thing are the ones who are already doing it and don't need a tool to do so - they're either taking photos on a solid background or using a dedicated image editing program like Photoshop.

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Exactly! I use a photo booth with lighting and a blue background. If I need to edit anything, I use Gimp. I cannot believe that eBay is going to come out with an easy to use editing program let along leave it alone long enough once we get used to it.

Yeah...no thanks...

Mike

Firesteel Surplus