How to photograph estate sale items for online listings
A buyer can't pick the item up, turn it over or hold it to the light. Your photos have to do that for them. Good listing photos don't need a studio or a camera better than your phone. They need steady light, a plain background and the right set of shots, taken the same way every time so a whole house of items doesn't take a week.
Light first
Light does more for a photo than any other choice you make. Daylight from a window, with the item beside it and not in direct sun, gives soft, even light and true color. Turn off the room's lamps while you shoot. Mixing daylight with warm bulbs gives a yellow or orange cast that makes white look cream and silver look brass.
- Turn the flash off. It flattens shape and leaves a white glare on glass, glaze and polished metal
- For shiny pieces, move the item or yourself until the bright reflection is off the part that matters
- If you can't get near a window, two matching lamps, one on each side, are better than one overhead light
- In a dim house, steady the phone on a chair back or a stack of books so the photo isn't blurred
A plain background
The item should be the only thing in the frame. A white or light gray sheet of poster board, a plain wall, a bare tabletop or an ironed bedsheet all work. For dark items a light background shows the outline. For clear glass, a mid-gray or dark background shows the shape better than white.
Clear the clutter out of frame. Other things from the house in the background make buyers wonder what's included, and a busy pattern behind the item makes the first photo hard to read at thumbnail size.
Large furniture stays where it is. Pull it away from the wall if you can, move what's on and around it, and shoot from a little above waist height so the proportions look right.
The shot list
Take the same shots in the same order for every item. You stop thinking about it after the first dozen, and you won't get home to find you never photographed the bottom.
- The whole item from the front, filling most of the frame. This becomes the first photo
- The whole item at an angle, so the buyer can see its depth
- Back and both sides
- Top, and the underside or base
- Any maker's mark, label, signature, stamp or serial number, close enough to read
- Inside: drawers open, lids off, the lining of a bag or box
- Every flaw, close up (more on this below)
- Anything that comes with it: lids, keys, cords, boxes, paperwork, all the pieces of a set laid out together
- One photo that shows scale
A small item with nothing to hide might need six photos. A dresser might need fifteen. At the time of writing eBay allows up to 24 photos in a listing at no extra charge, so there's no reason to ration them.
Show the size
Size is the detail buyers most often get wrong from photos alone. A vase can look ten inches tall or twenty. Take one photo with a tape measure or ruler held against the item so the numbers can be read, along its longest side. For furniture, measure height, width and depth, and photograph the tape for each if it's a piece where fit matters, such as a desk or a cabinet.
A coin or a hand in the frame gives a rough idea, but a readable tape measure answers the question and saves you a message from a buyer.
Photograph the flaws
It feels backwards, but the photo of the chip is one of the most useful in the listing. Buyers of used and vintage items expect wear. What they don't forgive is finding damage that wasn't shown. A clear close-up of each chip, crack, stain, scratch, repair or missing part protects you if there's a dispute later, and tells the right buyer exactly what they're getting.
- Get close enough that the flaw is obvious, then take a second photo from further back so the buyer can see where on the item it is
- Point at a hairline crack with a pencil tip, or light it from the side so it shows
- For glass and china, run a fingertip around every rim and photograph anything you feel
- For fabric and upholstery, photograph fading by showing a hidden area next to an exposed one
What eBay requires
- At least one photo, and at least 500 pixels on the longest side. eBay recommends around 1600 pixels, which any recent phone exceeds
- No added text, logos, borders or watermarks on the image
- For a used item, your own photos of the actual item. Catalog and stock photos aren't allowed for used listings
- Square or wide photos display best in search results, so leave a little room around the item and don't crop tight to its edges
Don't brighten or recolor photos to make an item look better than it is. Straightening and cropping are fine. Changing how the item looks is how "not as described" returns start.
Working through a whole house
- Set up one photo spot per room, or one for the house, and bring small items to it
- Wipe off dust and fingerprints first. Don't polish, refinish or repair. Some buyers want the original surface, and a bad cleaning can lower the value
- Finish every shot of one item before starting the next, so the photos stay together
- Check the first few photos at full size before you do a hundred more the same way
- Photograph in landscape or square and keep the phone level
Where LegacyList fits
LegacyList takes up to 60 photos in a batch, in any order, and groups the ones that show the same item, so you don't have to sort or rename them. It drafts each listing from what the photos show. If a photo shows a tape measure or ruler against the item, it reads the measurement from it. Otherwise it gives an estimate and marks it for you to check. When you publish to eBay, up to 24 of an item's photos go with the listing.