Using a Scanner For Your Photos for E-Bay

July 21, 2011


It's amazing how "weak" (politely speaking), some photos on E-Bay are. They're out-of-focus, too dark to see, and off-colour. Yet sometimes these listings get many bidders, and mine which are very good have no viewers. I sometimes wonder if I should present bad photos as an experiment.

However, to be fair, not everyone has a camera with a macro (close-up) lens, nor Photoshop, or has the time to take good photos.

So for today's instalment, I decided to use a scanner to see what I could come up with. My scanner is a high-end Epson scanner model V-700. However, I used to have a lower-end Epson 3200, which has since been discontinued. It was able to yield great scans. You can still find them on E-Bay!

Below is my first "preview" scan. You do a "preview" in order to see what modifications you will need to do to get a nice result. In the example below, my first step is to correct the exposure.

Be sure when placing metal objects on your glass of the scanner that you do this gently.

This will prevent scratches. Also, don't press hard on the scanner cover, otherwise you may break the glass!

First Scan

The "histogram" is a term that shows you the distribution of different tones.

In the above example, there are too many "dark" tones, so I will use the middle grey arrow and move it to the left, in order to get more detail and lighter tones.

The middle grey arrow at the bottom of the histogram was moved to the left.

Here is another window controller. You can change the contrast and brightness, make the blues richer (saturation) and correct improper colour.

Here is an overall nice correction

You have a feature that allows you to frame the scan to the size that you want.

The --------- illustrate the captured frame, and how the final scan will scan only that area.

Bottom

Top

Right Side

Left Side

As you can see from the last 4 scans, the images are certainly presentable and of satisfactory quality to present your item on e-Bay. Also, don't forget that you can click on any photo to see the enlarged version.