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As I mentioned in the last issue (http://www.auctionbytes.com/Email_Newsletter/33/34/34.html#images) one of the best ways to save money as an online auction seller is to host images with your own Internet Service Provider.
Once you begin uploading images to your own server, you'll quickly find that managing your space becomes extremely important. If your ISP allows you 5 megabytes of space with your Internet account and the average size of your files is 50 kilobytes apiece, you'll be able to host roughly 100 images on your server. This may or may not be sufficient, depending on the number of auctions that you list at one time. If your images bloat to 100k on average, you cut the number of images that you can maintain on your server in half.
As you can see, server space conservation becomes a major issue.
The size of an image file is determined by several factors - resolution, pixel depth and amount of compression you use when saving the file. I won't go into too much detail, (for a good explanation, go to http://www.pcguide.com/ref/video/modes.htm)
Suffice to say, that the more information your image has, the bigger your image file is going to be.
The challenge is to create the best looking pictures you can, while keeping the file size as small as possible. My personal preference is an image size that is between 640x480 and 800x600 pixels. For people who are viewing your auction at 1024x768 mode, your image will take up a little less than three-quarters of their screen.
Once you've settled on a size for your image, you should experiment with how much to compress your image without losing valuable detail. Graphic artists and Web designers spend hours trying to find the perfect balance of image quality and image size. Each time you skew the image in favor of one, you compromise the other.
This is where a good software program comes in handy.
If you've purchased a digital camera, then the odds are that a program of this sort was included. Although many bundled programs are "stripped down" versions of more expensive software, you may find all the features you need in these programs. I use Adobe Photoshop, and feel it has superior image compression. This allows me to maintain high image quality, while keeping my file sizes relatively small. It's also a costly program - $550-$650 street price.
If you're not too excited about spending your auction earnings on image-editing software, there are good, free programs available on the Internet. One is the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. You can download the latest version at http://www.gimp.org. It has a steeper learning curve than many commercial programs, so I urge you to read Edith Reynolds' experience with this software at http://www.auctionbytes.com/pages/abu/y201/m01/abu0030/s04
Adobe also has a very impressive free Web utility that allows you to compress images that are saved on your hard-drive. This is one you should definitely check out! http://webservices.adobe.com/save4web/main.html
Another space-saving technique that I use in my auctions is to create composite images of my auction items. This has several benefits. It allows me to save space on my server by combining many views of my auction item into one image file and also keeps potential bidders from having to scroll down a series of images on the page to get a complete view of my item.
Suppose I'm selling a Hummel figurine. I may want a full shot of the front of the figurine, a full shot of the back, and a close-up of the mark, so that collectors can determine the age. I may also want a close-up of any defects that bidders should be aware of. Here's an example: http://www.auctionbytes.com/images/640picex.JPG. In this example, the handle on the basket had been broken and re-glued. I wanted to give prospective bidders a good idea of the seriousness of the break. Instead of 4 or 5 different images taking up space on my server, I created one composite image showing all of the important information about my item. The file size is just a bit over 50k versus the 200+ kilobytes that I would be using if I had uploaded a different file for each view.
The process for creating composite images is a relatively simple one. After I take all of my pictures and save them to my hard drive, I open them up in my image editing software, in this case, Adobe Photoshop. I also create a new, blank, 800x600 image that I will use as my composite canvas. I select the image that show a good front view of my item, I use the "Marquee" or "Lasso" tool to trace a rectangle around the item in my picture. This eliminates all of the useless space around the item. Once I'm satisfied with the area I have selected, I drag the image over to my blank canvas. You may notice that once you drag the image over, it may take up more space than you anticipated. Use the "Resize" tool to make the selected area smaller. In Photoshop, hold the Shift key down as you're resizing to maintain the aspect ratio of your image. When you have an image size that you're happy with, paste it into your canvas and repeat the process for all of your images.
In my example, you'll notice that I used a black background when taking my pictures. That allows me to fill all of the space between my newly arranged images with black and gives the picture a better flow.
I also "Crop" the composite image, once I've dropped in all of my pictures, to eliminate wasted space on the top, bottom and sides of my picture. This may leave me with an image that is an odd size, such as 628x576. That's not a problem as it can still be viewed nicely within most browser windows. The more you can comfortably trim from your image, the more kilobytes you are shaving off your file size. One trick, after you have composed your new picture, is to use the "Sharpen" tool once. This is a great feature in Photoshop that greatly increases the clarity of your items. Don't overuse it, though. Overuse tends to degrade the image and make it look grainy.
I save my images as JPEGs using 75% compression. Depending on the complexity of the image, I may have a final file size of 30-60 kilobytes, which is fairly economical and allows most bidders to load the image quickly in the "View Auction" page.
All that these techniques require are a little practice and a little patience. Once you get the hang of them, you'll be making composite images like a pro. The effort is worth it.
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