How do I resize photographs?

Hi there, I’m new to all this and getting soooo frustrated as I don’t seem to be able to upload my photographs without getting them cropped when they show in a search or on my main shop page. They are fine when you click and look at them on the item page. I’ve saved them as 1000 pixels high (I think) but the bottom of the photograph is still being cropped so when someone does a search they won’t see the most important part (the charm at the bottom of the handbag charm).
My photographs are portrait and I have taken them pretty close up so there isn’t a lot of background.
Could anyone guide me through the way to do it (as simply as possible please as I’m not very computer savvy!)
Thanks,
Helen

The thumbnails on your shop page and in search are square, so you will need to take your photos with enough space round the items to be able to crop to a square without losing anything important. Then you can crop to a square using photo editing software before uploading - I use Picasa which is free to download and pretty easy to use - or you probably already have something on your computer.

This may also help: http://blog.folksy.com/category/seller-tips/handmade-photography-tips

Great, thanks for that. I was looking at others selling bag charms and many seem to position them diagonally when taking photos which makes sense as that creates more of a square! I’ll retake my photos and try uploading again. I assume it doesn’t cost anything to edit a photo in a listing?

Lovely, thanks, I’ll check that link out! x

I had a similar problem with long dangly earrings when I started - didn’t realise that it was happening until someone told me so you’re doing better than me already. If you use picasa there is a square crop option in the drop down menu - they call it cd cover - so you don’t have to guess if you’ve got it square or not.

No, you’re ok, you can edit your photos as much as you like for free!

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Something I always find helpful for fitting things in is to remember to hold the camera the other way round from the natural way, so a wide thing you’d photograph in portrait mode and a long thing (like earrings or a bag charm) you’d photograph in landscape mode. That way when you come to crop to a square you’re not chopping off anything vital. You will have to step back/zoom out a bit but when you come to crop the picture you’re effectively ‘zooming in’ again anyway.

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I think Folksy had info to say the photos were restricted to 642 pixels wide x 1000 pixels high. I have used 642 pixels x 642 pixels on square images, but 1000 x 1000 pixels will be a slightly better quality. On my main website I illustrate prints at approx 850 pixels x 850, but go up to 950 for some.

Having used twin lens reflex Rolleiflex film cameras for many years previously, it taught me how to compose square images, which is quite a discipline. I do 90% of my greeting cards square format and about 70% of my prints, but if you take pictures of objects, you need to allow space for items all around.

In software, I use the ‘canvas’ adjustment size a lot to put extra black or similar around my objects to make the margins even. Otherwise they can look a bit lop-sided.
Clearly, cropping your item image “in-camera” saves you a bit of work and time on the computer. Loads of free software out there, but I use paid-for software which I find more versatile for my needs.

Great tip, that makes a lot of sense and I probably wouldn’t have thought of that! Thanks Helen x

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Thanks Sasha, will check out picasa. Yes at least I’ve spotted this whilst I’ve only listed 2 products so not much to rectify.

Thanks Ronald, I appreciate your response, all good useful stuff there! This is all a bit of a learning curve for me :smile: