Better listing photos: 10 practical tips

On a classifieds site, the photo makes the first impression, and often the only one. Here are ten simple tips, all doable with a phone, to give your items their best shot.

1. Chase daylight. Near a window, avoiding backlight: natural light keeps colors true, where flash flattens volumes and shifts tones.
2. Neutralize the background. A plain wall, a sheet, a cleared table: the eye must land on the item, not the decor.
3. Multiply the angles. Front, back, side, top: buyers want to walk around the item like in a store. Four to six views are enough.
4. Show the reassuring details. Brand label, model number, buttons, stitching: they all prove authenticity and condition.
5. Show the flaws too. An honestly photographed scratch avoids a dispute and makes the whole listing credible.
6. Steady your phone. Brace your elbows or set the phone down; clean the lens first.
7. Frame wide, crop later. Leave air around the item when shooting; crop cleanly afterwards.
8. Nail the first photo. It is the one showing in the results feed: the most flattering, sharpest, best-lit view.
9. Edit lightly. Straightening the horizon and adjusting brightness is fine. Transforming colors is not: the item received must look like the item shown.
10. Stand out with an animated image. Combine your best views in an animated slideshow added as a listing photo: several angles visible at first glance, in the middle of static thumbnails.

These ten moves take about ten minutes in total, and they are often what separates an ignored listing from a phone that rings.