How to enlarge photos on existing listings…

By Sharon Fussell, August 22, 2014

 

When it comes to computers – indeed any technology – I readily admit I am a bit of a technophobe.

I tend to learn as much as I need to get by, but get stymied when I need to carry out some work and just cannot work out how to access the necessary software or package.

Recently I have had to upload photographs to support listings on online sites: whilst I am able to do this if it’s straightforward, I recently found that I have been asked to enlarge photographs on existing listings, to comply with the site requirements, and this troubled me…

Increasingly, buyers are using mobile phones to browse goods online and for this to be successful, photographs need to be larger: 500 pixels or more.

At first I had no notion of what ‘pixels’ meant…

Anyway, in the interest of not being able to list and update my listings, especially on eBay, I decided to establish just what is that I had to do to comply with current regulations. There is no point being a Luddite in a world of technology.

Now it appears most computer software operating systems, such as Windows, do have a photo-editing feature such as ‘Paint’. This feature is just so useful: it crops photographs to ensure just the relevant image, and not the surroundings, are included. (In many of my photos, due to the angle I have taken the photo at, my feet are on display, until I crop them away!)

When I create listings for eBay and Amazon, photos are a requirement, and I am usually ok with supplying the necessary images for fresh listings using my very trusty digital camera, but recently I have been asked to enlarge over 200 photographs on existing listings: this would constitute hours and hours of work.

‘There must be an easier way’, I thought. My hubby, Clive, who has far more patience than I when it comes to technology, found that by using the feature ‘Paint’ (available within ‘Pictures’ on the computer), we were able to re-size photographs and comply with the new regulations in quite a speedy way.

How did we achieve this?

First we opened the listing and saved the photograph within the listing as ‘Save Image’, by right-clicking the mouse.

Then we opened the image by right-clicking the mouse, in ‘Paint’.

We opted for ‘re-size image’ and clicked on ‘pixels’, which we ensured were at least 500 on the longest side (usually on the vertical on books and DVDs).

Then I clicked on ‘upload’ within the applicable listing.

This appears to do the trick, and now my listings comply with the regulations and everyone is happy!

Admittedly, because there were so many to do, it did take a few hours to change all the necessary listing amendments, but as Clive seemed very knowledgeable, he got the job!

See, work is not all about you doing the work: it’s about delegation too!