Photography requirements and advice
It is VERY important that sellers upload good quality photos of their items
Poor quality photos mean buyers are much less likely to buy your item, and make the website look bad.
We reserve the right to remove items with poor quality photos.
Photography requirements
- We recommend images of 4,000 pixels wide or high (or larger)
- Minimum resolution 2,000 pixels (so either 2,000px wide or 2,000px high as a minimum)
- (see the "How many megapixels do I need" section below for further info)
- Well lit (eg not in a dark room)
- You do not have to have photos with a white background. Sometimes photos of items accompanied with similar items or in a nice setting can actually work much better, and create much more of a "feel" for an item. If you are going to use a background however, we strongly recommend against using a bright coloured or green background
- Camera phones... we used to recommend against taking photos on your phone. However, as camera phone technology has evolved so much over the past couple of years taking photos with your phone can yield good results so long as your phone has a decent quality camera, the photo is well lit, etc.
Low quality photography
Photos which will be removed from the site (or dealers who will have their applications refused due to low quality photography)
In order to maintain high standards, we reserve the right to remove items with pictures that fall into the following. Likewise if you have applied as a dealer and had your application rejected, then it may be because your photography doesn't meet these standards.
- Grainy pictures
- Grainy pictures tend to be those which are taken in a low light and/or with a poor quality camera and look grainy
- Blurry / out of focus
- We don't accept pictures or dealers with blurry or out of focus pictures
- Cluttered
- Pairing your items with other items which help "frame" the shot can be great, and we encourage it. For example, if you have a side table and wish to place a lamp on top of it to create a nice feel, then we have no problem with this. Sometimes it works really well as it'll help sell the lamp as well as the table.
- However, we can't accept photos which look overly cluttered, where it isn't a case of pairing items together and the photo looks like a car boot sale.
- Irrelevant items or rubbish in the background
- We've had applications from dealers where they've taken a photo of a beautiful item, but next to the beautiful item (or in the background) there is rubbish or clutter. We've even had one with a bin liner or wheelie bins in the background! Photos like this are not acceptable.
- Poorly lit (too dark)
- Photos need to be well lit. Taking photos in dark rooms, or poorly lit rooms will result in dark looking, low qaulity picture
- Under exposed
- An under exposed photo is one where there isn't enough light in the photo (the camera shutter didn't open for long enough)
- Over exposed
- An over exposued photo is one where there is too much light in the photo (the camera shutter opened for too long) and the photo looks whited out
- Lack of care / poorly placed
- Photos where it looks like the item has just been dumped somewhere and then somebody took a picture of it without any thought or care. The placement of the item needs to be thought out and considered
- Badly cropped
- Where the item has been badly cropped (eg part of it has been cropped out)
- Low resolution / too small
- We can't accept pictures which are too small (eg low resolution). See "Photography requirements" section above
- Watermarks / graphics / text overlays / copyright text
- We do not allow watermarks, graphics or text on photos. This includes copyright text, any grpahics, embedding dimensions on photos, your logo, or any kind of watermarks.
Pictures less than 2,000 pixels wide
For information on why we enforce this standard, and a work-around if your images are of a lower quality please click here.
Number of photos
You can upload up to 20 pictures per item. Whilst you don't have to upload 20, we generally recommend making sure you upload at least 3 or 4 pictures of an item to give the buyer the best possible feel for the item and to increase your chances of selling it. The better a buyer can see the item online, the better the chances are they'll fall in love with it and want to buy it.
Watermarks or text on photos
We do not allow watermarks, graphics or text on photos. This includes copyright text, any grpahics, embedding dimensions on photos, your logo, or any kind of watermarks.
File types
We allow JPG/JPEG and PNG images.
We do not allow GIF images as they are of a poorer quality and typically only allow 256 colours which means they're usually no good for photographs.
How many megapixels do I need?
Megapixels | Resolution | Quality |
2 megapixels | 1600 x 1200 | Poor |
3 megapixels | 2048 x 1536 | Poor |
4 megapixels | 2240 x 1680 | Poor |
5 megapixels | 2560 x 1920 | Below average for modern day |
6 megapixels | 3032 x 2008 | Below average for modern day |
7 megapixels | 3072 x 2304 | Below average for modern day |
8 megapixels | 3264 x 2448 | Below average for modern day |
10 megapixels | 3872 x 2592 | OK |
12 megapixels | 4290 x 2800 | OK |
14 megapixels | 4288 x 3216 | Good |
16 megapixels | 4920 x 3264 | Good |
18 megapixels | 5184 x 3456 | Great! |
20 megapixels | 5456 x 3632 | Great! |
24 megapixels | 6000 x 4000 | Great! |
28 megapixels | 6480 x 4320 | Great! |
36 megapixels | 7360 x 4912 | Amazing! |
42 megapixels | 7952 x 5300 | Amazing! |
Tips on taking good photos
Our parent company, Antiques Web Design by ph9, have written a few blog articles on product photography with some tips. Please find links to these below to help guide you