How I take Photos for my eBay Listings

I am not a photographer but have had many compliments on my pictures, so I thought I would show how I set up to take a batch at a time. 

The round white spot is a SOLAR TUBE.  It is not a light.  It is sorta like a sky light but does not loose heat or allow heat gain into the house. We have a back porch just outside the kitchen window , so the kitchen was always very dark.  As long as it is light out, the solar tube provides enough light so we do not have to turn on the light every time we are in there during the day!

This back ground is what the kids use for science fair displays.  It fold flat of easy storage

The little white tabs on the back are Velcro strips.  I use black fabric draped over the cardboard, that also has Velcro.  With the Velcro there it prevents the fabric from sliding off and it is even each time I set it up.

The back with the fabric attached. Notice the lamp on the left.  I place that on the table behind the display so it shines down on the item.

The front with the fabric draped.  Once it is all set up I slide the table under the solar tube and turn on the kitchen light, and the floor lamp and wait for the right time of day when the most light is coming in the solar tube. 

I normally take 50 -100 photos at a time and rarely more than one of each position of the item. After the photos are taken, I upload them into Picassa (a free Google product) in a special folder and edit them as I need them.   

 

When I edit, I can crop, straighten, adjust the brightness and highlights, and sharpen the image in less than a minute. 

From Picassa they go to My Pictures (with titles of the items rather than some code) and live there until I am ready to list them and upload them to Vendio (IMO the best listing program)  for storage and watermarking. After they are in Vendio, they are then moved to a external hard drive to live for ever and ever!   

Sounds like alot of steps but it works for me and is very fast because it is done in an assembly line method. 

To see my photos, check out my eBay store  The scarfs pictures are take in a different room on the mannequin (thanks to the suggestion from Griff.)