Photography - Size is Everything; Picture Size that is!

By: Carol Scheer

So you have a digital camera that boasts how many megapixels it can shoot. 3 megapixels. 5 megapixels. 8 megapixels.

Wow. That’s great, right? The more the merrier, correct?

Well, bigger is not always better. Megapixels can cause a mega melt down for your potential buyers. Knowing how to set your camera to shoot at the correct size is critical for selling on the internet - especially when pictures are the main salesperson for your item.

To understand what I’m talking about let’s start at the beginning. A computer monitor displays what you see by putting a lot of pixels side by side. Okay...so what’s a pixel?

A pixel is the short form for picture (pix) element (el). It’s the smallest component of a digital picture.

Think of a pixel as one single square. Each square can display the same color or a different color.

As you put them together side by side and begin to stack them up they begin to form an image.

As you see the more pixels, you have the better the image.

In the early days of computers, one could only see text on a computer monitor (anyone remember those old IBM monitors with the black background and green letters?). Those monitors could only display a limited amount of pixels.

But, as technology advanced and people wanted to see pictures and videos on their monitors, the monitors had to be able to display many more pixels to show a clear, distinct picture.

Computers allow you to change how many pixels your monitor can display (and this also depends on how many pixels your monitor can display...old monitors can not display as many pixels as the new models).

To illustrate this let’s take an example of 3 popular monitor sizes. If we had a picture of the Mona Lisa that was 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels long and we viewed it on a monitor that was set to display 800 pixels by 600 pixels the picture would take up the entire screen.

But if we displayed that same 600 x 800 Mona Lisa picture on a monitor that was set to display a larger amount of pixels the picture would appear smaller because the monitor has more pixels “available” than just 800 x 600.

Now stay with me...I’m going to explain how this can impact your sales...I promise!

The Sony Mavica was the first digital camera and it could take pictures that were 570 x 490 pixels. As digital cameras advanced, they began taking pictures that contained millions of pixels...otherwise known as a Megapixel (MB).

Megapixels produce incredibly sharp detailed pictures. When you’re taking pictures of your collectibles it stands to reason you would think that shooting images at the highest megapixel setting your camera has is the right thing to do.

Well...it is the right thing to do if you plan to print your photographs. But when you take pictures to display on the Internet those megapixels cause your buyers a mega headache.

Here’s why.

As mentioned above monitors can be set by their owner to display a variety of pixel sizes and we, as sellers, have no idea what that setting is.

If you take pictures at your cameras highest setting, you risk taking a picture that is way too big for all of it to be displayed on the monitor.

Most of us have participated on discussion boards where someone posts a picture that “breaks the board”. It’s huge and causes us to have to scroll back and forth to see the entire picture.

This is because they have posted a picture that was taken at a high megapixel image size and our monitors cannot display all of it at once.

When you create a listing on Ruby Lane, it compresses the pictures that are displayed when a thumbnail image is clicked. If your pictures are megapixels in size, the pictures will be slow to load. If a buyer clicks on the Larger Images link below your pictures they are going to see an image that not only is slow to load but one that is going to “break the board”. This is also true if you submit pictures to Ruby Lane’s Blogs - if the picture is too big it is going to take forever to load.

Remember that not everyone has high speed FIOS, Cable or DSL. Many buyers still use modems to surf the Internet. If your pictures are too big they will be waiting for many minutes to see them - and let’s be honest...most people aren’t that patient. They will click away from your listing and move on.

Therefore, shoot your pictures at your camera’s lowest setting (this is usually called VGA). You can take it to the bank that you will be shooting a picture that is small in size, which ensures fast loading. And, fast loading pictures means that buyers will see them quickly and, hopefully, buy your merchandise even faster!

But I Want To Shoot At A Higher File Size To Capture Details

If you want to shoot at a higher image size to capture tiny details that’s fine. In my next blog, I will show you how to shoot at a higher resolution and then edit the picture to load fast and not be a huge pixel monster.

If you missed my previous blog on Macro Mode to photograph smalls such as jewelry you can read it here. A Return to Splendor: Photographing Jewelry 1: Macro Mode | Notes From the Lane

Good luck with your photography and continued success with your sales.

Article Source: https://www.collectibles-articles.com

Carol Scheer
A Return To Splendor - www.rubylane.com/shops/areturntosplendor

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