Weirdest Photo Edits

[copper.boom]

What are the weirdest edits you've made to your eBay photos before listing?

Mine are "cleaning up" the appearance of a tape measure I had included in a bunch of photos. It was a very old tape measure that had gotten marked up by pens and markers from years of use, had holes in it where it was stuck with push pins at some point, and overall did not have a pleasant appearance.

I was photographing some items shortly after a move and it was the first tape measure I found while unpacking. Since I keep my eBay items clean and packed/stored well I didn't want the worn tape measure to give my listings a poor appearance, so I photoshopped a bunch of the pen marks out of the tape measure.

A couple days later I tossed that tape measure as I unearthed several others while unpacking. Photo editing is tedious and I don't want to do more than crop, rotate, adjust brightness if necessary, etc.

I know this is an odd topic for discussion, but I'm procrastinating when I should be listing new items so they have visibility this holiday weekend. 

[usmc*usnmom]

I've tried all those neat little edits and just never could get the hang of it. My pictures wound up looking like a kindergarten scribble. I've tried the background eraser thing a few times, too and that was a total fail. I just stick with cropping and adjusting the lightness or darkness

[mistwomandancing]

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usmc*usnmom wrote:

I've tried all those neat little edits and just never could get the hang of it. My pictures wound up looking like a kindergarten scribble. I've tried the background eraser thing a few times, too and that was a total fail. I just stick with cropping and adjusting the lightness or darkness

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I can't do PhotoShop either.  I just crop and adjust too.  Had to crop out the cat's tail once, when we still had our kitty years ago.

[scga912]

A rogue cat hair or two on the white foam board which I only catch when I'm viewing the pics.  I turn my back for one moment and one magically appears on the board again 'ready for her close-up'  Grrrr  Sometimes they photo bomb

The simple photo viewer that came with the new computer has some editing features built right in.  Spot Fix and a few taps and that piece of cat hair is gone. 

I don't do much else really except for cropping. 

[sockmonkeydave]

@copper.boom

Not ebay, but years ago we were selling a plane.

Using spot tool I removed the tie down ropes.

And cleaned up the paint job.

[copper.boom]

@sockmonkeydave You cleaned up the paint job with photo edits? Were the potential buyers disappointed when they saw the actual plane?

[sockmonkeydave]

@copper.boom

lol   It was not for sale, we were using it for a photo shoot, for a an advertizment.

Edit I should not have said selling, fingers got ahead of the brain.

[rolenboy01]

This isn't really a weird photo edit but sometimes I have to leave certain pictures with a little bit of background or kitchen floor tile which I don't like to do, it's because of the way I took the picture or the angle of the item and it's usually something I don't want to retake because the lot took forever to set up.

[sockmonkeydave]

@copper.boom

Act the cat is in one of my listings, I did not catch it.

A few days later i get a message " is the cat included? "

I just put in a disclaimer.... cat not included.

[penguins_dont_fly]

@scga912

@sockmonkeydave

I am just thinking of putting a blurb on all my listings "free cat hair with every purchase" ... or "white cat fur shown for color comparison" ... it would just save me time in the end 🙂

[kitchen-topia]

Well, I'll "tell" if you won't tell anybody.

When I am cropping photos, which I do in batches of 30 to 50, I see a bit of lint.
Rather than retake photo(s) I spot fix it, find garment and remove lint.

My editing tool that came with computer is real good about changing the tilt of photos which is cool 'cause I cannot seem to stop tilting the camera to the right a bit.

However if I take photos with camera on it's side, for long garments, the editing tool will not rotate to upright without cropping a huge slice off of the right side. Tried it several different ways and just rotate on eBay now.

[a_c_green]

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@kitchen-topia wrote:

My editing tool that came with computer is real good about changing the tilt of photos which is cool 'cause I cannot seem to stop tilting the camera to the right a bit.

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If you explore the features menu on your camera, you will probably find an option for displaying horizontal and/or vertical grid lines in your viewfinder display. My old Canon Powershot A540 can do this, and I have the grid lines turned on by default. This makes it dead easy to level the camera with any horizontal or vertical feature on the item you're photographing.

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@kitchen-topia wrote:

However if I take photos with camera on it's side, for long garments, the editing tool will not rotate to upright without cropping a huge slice off of the right side. Tried it several different ways and just rotate on eBay now.

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If you have a Windows machine (and I assume Macs can do this in some way, too), just right-click on the image file in Windows Viewer, Explorer or similar utility, and you should see an option for rotating the entire image file either clockwise or counterclockwise in 90° increments. That way I'll have them properly oriented before uploading.

[a_c_green]

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@copper.boom wrote:

@sockmonkeydave You cleaned up the paint job with photo edits? Were the potential buyers disappointed when they saw the actual plane?

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sockmonkeydave: So! Whaddaya think? Ain't she a beauty? 

BUYER: It's red.

sockmonkeydave: (puzzled) And...?

BUYER: Your listing shows a blue one. 

sockmonkeydave: (relieved) Oh, that! Nothing to worry about. Just a minor touchup error. That Photoshop takes a lot of practice to get right; know what I mean? Once you're inside looking out, you won't notice the color anyway, right? 

[7606dennis]

Frankly, I advise against doing very much editing to product photos lest you find that you've edited yourself into a SNAD dispute.

[scga912]

@kitchen-topia

I was having that rotate issue too as it was trying to keep the form.

I'm using the Windows Photo Editor that came with the new laptop.  If you're using the same you can fix that rotation issue easily. 

When you click on Edit > Crop & Rotate - check the Aspect Ratio.

Make sure it's set to Original for rotation.  When it's on Custom it goes wonky. 

However, for cropping it has to be on Custom if you only want to do a side at the time (Original will keep the shape and crop all sides equally)