Instructions for adding free pictures to your listings

milliejon

The picture will be there. But I recommend making the image smaller so that buyers can click to see a larger picture - this will speed up the download.

tempuscat

Something else I'd recommend where image handling is concerned.

For sheer ease / speed of use, I've found Adobe's 'Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0' really good. Instead of cropping pix 'blind', as it were, you can use it to crop and re-size an image to fit a variety of standard sizes.

I always found Photoshop (my main image editor) awkward to use when it came to cropping a pic / re-sizing -- i.e. cropping an 800x600 image and trying to get the edited version to still come out at 800x600 -- but the 'Album Starter' software manages it in seconds.

It's a free download from Adobe; I've found it essential for my eBay listings as I can more or less crop all extraneous stuff from a shot and still finish up with an image that retains the proportions of the original and so looks OK on the auction page.

I actually use Album Starter for all my pix: post-process first in PhotoShop, then crop / resize in Starter so as to maintain the proportions (or deliberately change 'em) of the original image. There're no awkward calculations involved: Album Starter is very much WYSIWYG.

milliejon

tempuscat wrote:

Something else I'd recommend where image handling is concerned.

For sheer ease / speed of use, I've found Adobe's 'Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0' really good. Instead of cropping pix 'blind', as it were, you can use it to crop and re-size an image to fit a variety of standard sizes.

I always found Photoshop (my main image editor) awkward to use when it came to cropping a pic / re-sizing -- i.e. cropping an 800x600 image and trying to get the edited version to still come out at 800x600 -- but the 'Album Starter' software manages it in seconds.

It's a free download from Adobe; I've found it essential for my eBay listings as I can more or less crop all extraneous stuff from a shot and still finish up with an image that retains the proportions of the original and so looks OK on the auction page.

I actually use Album Starter for all my pix: post-process first in PhotoShop, then crop / resize in Starter so as to maintain the proportions (or deliberately change 'em) of the original image. There're no awkward calculations involved: Album Starter is very much WYSIWYG.

This is great! cheers :beer:

tempuscat

Thanks milliejon -- hope it's useful! I first appreciated its ease of use when a friend showed me the wedding pix he'd taken for another friend, and wanted to have commercially produced prints of some of the images. Only problem was, he couldn't get his 'new' versions -- after cropping -- to conform to the proportions of the originals, so despaired of actually getting the revised versions to fit any known standard size of picture frame.

I mentioned Album Starter to him and hey, bingo! Worked like a dream: some really superb, frameable results created in only a few minutes of cropping / re-sizing thanks to this particular Adobe freebie.

Nadia

I have just downloaded photoshop album starter but can't seem to figure out how to resize a photo. Could you please help me out ? Thanks.

lillybell

Can someone kindly post a link to photoshop album. This will keep the download safe.

Thank you.

Also just for reference. Photobucket.com has a, "how to add to ebay" information link. But I think the pictures look a tad small?

tempuscat

Hi Nadia -- let's see if I can talk you through it (it'll sound long-winded, but is actually very quick -- after you've done it the first time!)

1. Open the program. The registration screen will come up first. (Album Starter is free, but Adobe like you to register -- they'll email you a 'product key' to allow unlimited use.)

2. At the top of the Adobe screen, you'll see a range of options running from left to right: File Edit View Find Help. Click on File.

3. A drop down menu will appear. The first entry reads: Get Photos, with an arrow next to it. The arrow opens a sub-menu which gives five (5) options for locating the photos. For the sake of this run-through, let's assume the picture you wish to crop / re-size / retain proportions is already on your hard drive. So click on From Files & Folders.

(3a: immediately below the top-of-screen text are a series of icons running from left to right, which can be used instead of the text if you wish. The icons are a left (back) arrow, a right (forward) arrow, a 'home' icon for showing 'all non-hidden photos', a camera (the icon for 'get photos'), a paintbrush icon (for fixing photos) and then further icons for slideshow, print, share pix, and Adobe service centre. At this stage, the icons you're interested in are the camera and the paintbrush.)

4. Whichever you use, the file menu or the camera icon, the program will now 'open' your hard drive and allow you to navigate through to whichever directory / sub directory / folder / sub folder in which you have your picture. Click on the picture.

5. The Adobe screen will now change to show a thumbnail image of the picture. Above it, a banner text will read: New Items: Imported from hard disk on such-and-such a date.

6. Double-click on the thumbnail. The full image will now appear, centred on the Adobe 'desktop'.

7. Now, click on the paintbrush icon. This will bring up a short 2-option menu: auto fix, and Fix Photo Window.

8. Click on Fix Photo Window. (Don't click on AutoFix!)

9. A new screen will now superimpose itself over the earlier screen. It will be headed Fix Photo -, and then give details of the picture. The screen will also come up with a short warning text which states that the program is actually creating a copy for you to work on, rather than you having to make changes to the original, and that the copy will be saved as a jpeg or tiff. It also confirms that it will store your revised image in the same place as the original, but with the title changed to show you that this is the revised version. (In essence, then, Adobe is saving you from inadvertently wrecking an original image -- something I've appreciated over time!)

10. The image you're going to work on will appear in a box. To the right of this box are three icons: General Crop and Red Eye. Click on Crop.

11. And this is where the clever stuff comes in, because the screen now gives you the Crop Photo options with an Aspect Ratio menu. It's this Aspect Ratio control which is at the heart of the program. Click on the drop down menu; you'll immediately see a range of options. Choose which one you prefer (or retain the image's original proportions) and click Apply.

12. You are now ready to begin cropping according to the aspect ratio you've chosen for the finished image. So. . . click the Crop icon again.

13. A 'shimmering' dotted-line outline of the chosen aspect ratio will now appear on top of the image. You can move the entire outline around by left clicking on it. Or you can 'pull' or 'push' the 'handles' at each corner. Whatever you choose to do, the cropping will now take place according to the proportions / aspect ratio you have already chosen.

14. When you're happy with the crop, click Apply.

15. The boxed image (you have various display options though, including full screen) will now change to the cropped image. Click the OK button at the bottom of the crop screen.

16. The program will now save this revised image to the original directory.

And that, er, is it. Your original remains intact. The copy has been cropped. The finished version is exactly at the proportions you've specified, but you haven't had to mess around with complicated measurements.

NB: it's best to process the original image first in whichever photo editing program you're using. I use PhotoShop, because in my experience it's still the best, but you'll have your own preference. I upgrade the image resolution in PhotoShop if I know the cropped image is going to be sent to a commercial printer for printing, or even if I'm going to print it myself. If I'm only saving the new image to file, or for my Photobucket account, or for an eBay listing, then I don't increase the resolution.

Also, note that Album Starter 'saves' the image you've worked on so that when you next use the program, it comes up on screen. (Well, it is supposed to be an album, after all). I don't need this facility, and you may not either, so simply hit the delete button on your keyboard. The program will now ask if you wish to delete it from Album Starter and to tick the box if you also wish it deleting from your hard drive. . . so don't tick the box for hard drive deletion (unless you want to, of course).

Sorry if these seems fairly lengthy, but after you've done this a couple of times you'll actually fly through the re-sizing / cropping process in no time at all, and be able to accurately change, say, a landscape pic to a portrait pic without a hitch. Hope this helps!

milliejon

Bumped for Apprentice Tycoon. I hope this helps.

milliejon

Just a quick note. If you're having problems seeing your photos, check your firewall is letting you view PhotoBucket.

milliejon

Ajay - bumped as promised.