Some business colleagues and I recently had some photos taken for a Web site we're creating. The professional photographer took us to his studio, where he rolled out huge sheets of bright paper that hung behind us and that we stood on as well. The effects are quite dramatic; they throw all the attention on us, and it looks like we're floating on the background of the web page.
Backgrounds are one of the biggest challenges facing sellers who want to take eye-catching photos of the merchandise they hope to sell online. One of the classic problems with eBay photos is what sort of background to have, and how to find a background that complements your auction item. If you don't have one of those fancy little light tents, and you aren't able to drape sheets behind your images for some reason, and the backgrounds are, frankly, full of distracting junk, what can you do?
Several months ago, I wrote about a program called Fluid Mask by Vertus (http://www.vertustech.com). It's a useful tool for cleaning up the backgrounds of images and "masking" out unnecessary images so potential bidders and buyers can focus on the item for sale.
Fluid Mask enables you to replace your image's previous background with a solid color. But for a really professional presentation, some texture might be a useful addition to that background; for some objects, an image might be even better. A box of golf balls might look really good atop a background of green grass, for instance. If you want to go a step beyond masking to do image and background editing, Bling It, also by Vertus, is an obvious choice.
Like Fluid Mask, Bling It automates the process of defining and then deleting the background of an image. It goes a step further, though, by providing you with backgrounds you can automatically add behind the product you're presenting. Some of the backgrounds look like curtains with texture in them, which give them a three-dimensional effect. Others are photos and line art included with the application.
I decided I would simply open up an image and start working with it without reading any of the documentation, to see how easy or difficult the program is to learn. When the Bling It window opens, two small windows on the right-hand side are there to help you along. The Paintaway Viewer lets you view the image you are editing without the blue boundary lines Bling It automatically draws around the shapes in the image. In the photo of a butterfly shown below, the blue lines were all over the bushes and flowers behind the flying creature - but they were also drawn around the outside of the butterfly and even on the two hard-to-see antennae.
The program is pretty easy to use at the outset. You are given a 96-pixel red Delete brush, which you swish around the image to create a red mask. The mask defines the parts of the image to be deleted. The brush is so big that I occasionally erased some of the butterfly, so I had to press Undo several times to preserve the insect. But in a couple of minutes I had the butterfly mostly outlined.
I switched to a smaller Delete brush and finally an Exact Delete brush to finish outlining the butterfly. I found that I had to use an Erase brush to get the two tiny antennae to reappear. After about ten minutes, I had the creature outlined.
Next, I did some cropping and rotating, and then added some special effects. In some graphics programs I've used, the controls intended to sharpen images just end up making the image look jagged and ragged. Not Bling It. It actually sharpened the butterfly. I added a drop shadow - well, just to see what it would look like - and it looked well enough to keep.
After adjusting and composing the entire image, I went back to the tab that lets you add special effects, because this is where you add a background. You are given the option of choosing among several types of background:
- A solid color
- A "wavy" or "curly" design
- A design from one of your own files
- A background from a library supplied with the application
The library turned out to be extensive, and included a sea of green grass that looked quite appropriate for the butterfly (which, I admit, looked a little like a stealth bomber with that drop shadow).
Bling It Is available from http://www.blingit.us for purchase for $49.95. You can download and use a 15-day trial version. Bling It provides you with the image masking power of Fluid Mask and adds special effects that are bound to give your auction images pizzazz.
I found Bling It to be easy to use and quite effective at what it does. The problems with the program are the same as those with Fluid Mask: the software works best with simple images that have well-defined shapes. There's also the time factor: it takes time to edit images well, and do you really want to be spending five or ten minutes editing each auction image, when you're trying to get 50 or perhaps 100 online? Bling It Probably isn't necessary for every single product photo. But for special objects that are especially valuable, the masking and editing features will increase buyer interest and show off your item in a way that makes it seem like it really has "bling."
