picture guide
"A picture is worth a
thousand words".
Adding a good photo
means much more effective advertising and
increased ad views - but a
bad photo may just irritate the potential buyers and have the
opposite
effect.
This guide will help you
create quality pictures for use on Net Instruments
and avoid common pitfalls.
Contents:
Shooting the picture(s)
A few general
tips:
-
Place the instrument in
front of a clean background
-
Use a tripod to avoid
motion blur
-
And remember: a closer
photo is easier to view - take one step forward!
Sometimes it is more
interesting to see just one close-up detail
rather than the whole instrument.
Another tip is to join 2-3 pictures
of the same instrument, showing an
overall view and close-ups
(of scroll, backside etc). Use your
graphics software to do this.
Example:
For associate program members and for gallery ads, you may
upload 3 pictures per ad. For standard ads on NetInstruments, you may only upload
one picture file but that file may consist of more than one
image (see example above), as long
as the final image stays within
the limitations, see checklist.
How to make it digital
If you have a digital
camera/webcam connected to your computer
the whole picture process is very
simple. Using Photo-CDs is also
very handy - you don't need a
scanner!
If you use a traditional
camera you can either
-
make prints and then
scan them
-
have your pictures
developed and placed on a Photo-CD. (Ask your
photo
developer.)
The standard screen
resolution is 72 dpi (dots per inch). When
using a scanner, you might want to
scan the prints using a higher
resolution (for example 120 dpi)
and then reduce the image size
and dpi afterwards. When changing
image sizes, always go from larger to smaller, not the other way
around!
SAVE the original image
after the scanning. Use PIC/PICT, TIFF
or PSD file format if you need to
do any changes in size, color
balance etc. Do not use JPEG at
this stage.
What
is JPEG?
So now you have the
picture in digital form. It is time to make
it suitable for web use. First you
need to know a few things
about the graphics file format
JPEG.
JPEG (named after the
Joint Photographer's Expert Group which
came up with the file format) is a
file format for photographic
images, images with gradient fills
or many colors. It is supported
by all contemporary graphic
web-browsers.
JPEG files (usually seen
with a .jpg file extension) are files which have been passed through
a compression
algorithm taking advantage of
several tricks to be able to squeeze
data down. There is a slight bit
of quality loss due to the compression.
 Warning. The quality is reduced
every time a JPEG file is opened
and then re-saved.
Therefore it is important to work from the scanned original - in a
file format that is NOT compressed, for example: TIFF,
PICT or PSD (Photoshop)
- until you are satisfied with the image
and size, and then save
it in JPEG format at the very end.
When you are saving the
picture in JPG format, it is possible
to set the compression/quality on a
scale from Low Quality to
High Quality. The higher the
quality the larger the file size.
The maximum allowed file
size on NetInstruments is 250KB which is enough to make a sharp,
good-looking photo and maintain fast download speed.
The main picture
Next step is to see if
the image can be improved digitally.
-
Open the image with your
graphic software. Check to see if you
have lots of "dead
space" around the actual image (ie the instrument).
Crop it to get rid of the
unnecessary parts.
-
Your image width and
height must be less than 1000 pixels x 1000 pixels.
-
Check color balance,
brightness and contrast. You can also use
filters to enhance the
picture. For example if the picture is
unsharp, apply the
"Sharpen" filter (Photoshop) or similar.
When you are happy with
the looks and the image fits within 1000
x 1000 pixels - SAVE it as JPEG,
like this:
violinbow.jpg
-
Only characters
"a-z" or "A-Z" or figures "0-9", and
the suffix
".jpg". No spaces
in the file name (but underscore "_" is OK).
Check that the file size
(weight) doesn't exceed 60KB. If it does, open the
original file and save it as a JPG again, with less image
quality=higher compression,
or reduce the image
width/height.
Checklist
main picture:
-
JPEG file format
-
suffix
".jpg"
-
max. 1000x1000
pixels
-
max. 250KB
Preview
To preview the result,
open the images in your web browser.
-
Launch your browser
(Firefox, Internet Explorer or other)
-
Under the
"File" menu choose "Open..." or "Open file"
-
Locate the image on your
hard drive
If you can't see the
image, it is probably not saved in JPEG file
format.
Uploading
Done the checklist and
preview? Time to put the image online!
Log in to your account.
Submit a new advert or click the 'picture...' link which is next to each
of your ads
Use the
"Browse" button to locate
the picture file on your hard drive. Then click
"Send files". That's it!
Log in to your account to upload pictures
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