Closet Clean-Out: Tips for Taking Great Photos for Your Listings

When it comes to selling your clothes (or anything) online, pictures can make or break your online selling endeavors.  Not only do they make your listings more likely to sell, good pictures also make your listing more likely to fetch a higher price.  Your photos are your biggest piece of advertising.

Here are my tips for getting the best photos for your listings.

Tip#1: take photos on a flat surface

Lay the item you’re selling somewhere that’s absolutely flat.  I’ve used my coffee table, dresser, and my floor.  For the purposes of this conversation: your bed does NOT count as a flat surface!  Photos taken on beds (or couches for that matter) always end up looking a bit lumpy and never nice and clean.  Don’t do it!  I also don’t recommend putting things on a hanger.  Some people recommend hangers, but to me it just never hangs right and doesn’t look as nice compared to laying flat.  It’s also harder to find a good background when you have a hanger to deal with.  While hangers might work well for other types of clothes, I don’t feel like it’s a good option for activewear.

On a related note: be sure you’re taking the photos straight on, since this will show the item the most clearly.

Tip #2: take photos on a neutral-colored surface

As a follow-up to the above, it is *crucial* that the background of your photo is as neutral as possible.  The neutral thing is another reason why floors are a great photo-taking surface.  Avoid prints, stripes, or any “busy” backgrounds like your closet.  Besides looking for a solid-colored background, try to make sure it’s neutral too.  As much as I love teal, it sure doesn’t make for a good backdrop.  Don’t have anything in the photo that would distract from your item.

If you do a lot of selling and want to go the extra mile, you can go to a hardware store like Home Depot and buy a sheet of melamine or a sheet of some similar plain white material.  I bought a 5’x8′ sheet (which I had cut in two pieces) for only $10.  It’s especially useful for me since I can use it to take photos for posts (like the picture above!) or Instagram.  Poster board from a craft store can also work for smaller items.

In my opinion, the floor is overall the easiest and most foolproof photo surface.  And everyone has one! :) Unless you haven’t vacuumed for a month, it’s should be plenty clean to simply lay your item flat on top.

Tip#3: use natural light

Lighting is soooo important in any kind of photo, but especially for selling!  Dark, washed out, or blurry photos are a huge turn-off to buyers.  If you can’t even see what you’re getting, how would you know if you want it?  Well-lit photos also really help to bring out the item’s colors and just make everything look prettier overall.

I strongly recommend trying to use natural light whenever possible.  The lighting is more even and it’s most likely to show an accurate representation of color.  It might take a little bit of trial and error to find the best spot in your house to get good photos.  Open up the blinds and start experimenting!  Even if you are only around to get photos certain days of the week (I can only get good pics on the weekends), it’s worth the wait!

If you *really* can’t get good natural light, make every effort to get a nice, brightly lit photo.  I don’t recommend using flash–it never turns out well for these types of photos.  Try using other light sources instead.  If your photo doesn’t turn out well the first time around, you can tweak the brightness in an app on your phone or your computer to make things look more true to life.

Once you put in a little bit of time upfront and figure out when, where, and how you can get the best photos, it will streamline the selling process and you’ll be able to get through a lot of photos/items very quickly.

Tip #4: be sure your item is in focus

Lastly, make sure your photo is clear and crisp!  This might seem obvious, but I’m always surprised by how many blurry photos I see out there.  For most smart phones, you can tap the area on the screen where you want the camera to focus.  Give it a brief moment to adjust, then go for it.  Make sure you review your photo after taking it to be sure it’s properly focused.

What pictures you should include

Now that you’ve figured out how to take pictures, what exactly should you be taking photos of?  The front and back of the item are a good place to start.  If there are any special design details, take a photo of those to show them off.  If you still have a tag of any kind on the item (whether it be the retail tag or a sewn in tag), a photo of that but can be helpful but is optional.  If there are stains, signs of wear, or any flaws at all, absolutely include a photo of those.  If your item does have flaws, it’s important that these are represented plainly, since it protects you from your buyer coming back and complaining once they’ve received their purchase.  Remember: it’s always better to have too many photos than too few.

Another really helpful photo to include can be a picture of someone wearing the item.  If you’re feeling up to it, you can snap a pic of yourself wearing the item.  If not, you may be able to find a photo via Google image search.  For lululemon especially, pics like this are really easy to find.  If you find or have an especially good photo of someone wearing the item, make that one your feature image to draw in potential buyers, especially if your own photos aren’t quite as good.  A great photo of someone rocking what you’re selling can be a really compelling selling point.  Just be sure to always include pictures of the actual item for sale, no matter what other pics you might include.

By the way: if something you’re selling has been featured on this blog, consider this your permission to use my photos for your listings.  It’s always kind of funny to see photos of myself on eBay or Poshmark, but at this point, I’ve gotten used to it. :)

Good luck snapping some photos!  After all this prep, next I’ll talk about where and how to list your goods.