1. Upload 2 or 3 photos from your computer |
3. Resize and crop your photo slices.
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(JPG and GIF files only - 1MB file size limit) | |
2. Drag thumbnails to workspace | |
After thumbnails appear, rotate if needed. Then drag to any of the three panels in the white workspace below. |
When stitching together an image for eBay hosting, the goal is to create a photo that is generally square and completely filled with image. That gives you the best coverage in the searches and at the top of the listing. Watch the dimensions under the panels and aim for a total of 400x400. That is the onscreen size you will see on the workspace. The composite that you ultimately make will be based on the size you choose next to the MAKE button.
If your stitched photo is not intended for eBay hosting, then, of course, any shape will do.
For most merged images, two photos would do the trick. For really skinny items, three can be stacked, but don't overcrowd the images or they may become confusingly muddled.
After uploading, thumbnails will appear. If they need to be rotated, drop one at a time on the rotation block next to the thumbnails. The rotated image will reappear in the thumbnail.
Drag a thumbnail to any panel. Change the image in a panel by dragging a different thumbnail image into it. The same thumbnail can be used in more than one panel. In fact, a single uploaded image can be used in all three panels, each zoomed to show a different detail.
Because there are pullers at the bottom of each panel, you can adjust the width of each panel to crop closer to your subject if you need to. The panels don't all need to be the same width. You can have a fat one and a skinny one.
The plus-button under each panel will allow you to zoom in and thus crop out more background. The plus and minus buttons are unbalanced, zooming in a tad less than zooming out. This allows you to wiggle in to tiny size adjustments using several iterations of in/out. The image itself can be dragged around and shoved closer to the left edge or centered on a point of interest.
If you only need two photos, close the third panel by dragging the puller at the bottom of the panel, as leaving it open will detrimentally affect the size of your composite. Or you can populate the two outer panels and close the center panel down to a narrow white seam that separates your two photos.
If your photos are short and wide and you want to make a panorama shape, drag the panels considerably wider so that the height still fills a panel. You may be more comfortable dragging on the colored bar instead of on the arrow as you approach the right edge of the screen.
Did you drag an image out of sight? Don't like the +/- scale that you've set? Drag a new thumbnail back to the panel and the photo will be reset in the panel to its initial size and position.
Did you close a panel completely and now need it back? Get all three panels back to a starting positon by clicking the reset button under the panels. Drag your thumbnails back into the panels.
Perhaps you would like to change out a photo and replace it with a different one. The tiny thumbnails are in the same order as the upload slots, so to change out thumbnail #2, upload a new photo in slot #2. The new thumbnail can then be dragged to whatever panel you want. This will allow you to create different combinations without having to upload a whole new set each time.
The "Make" button will tell the server to create your composite image and display the results in the bottom window. There are several size options from which to choose and that size will determine the dimension of the longest side. Most people will create a composite that is square or wider than tall. If using third-party image hosting like Photobucket, the best image sizes for auctions are 400, 500, or 640.
If the intent is to upload to eBay hosting, you may want to save as supersize or upload size, where the longest dimensions are 800 and 1000 pixels, respectively. Those give eBay plenty of material to work with when they shrink your image. If your photo is not that large, the program currently enlarges the image to fit the size you select. Enlarged images usually don't look that great, so if your photos are small to start with, you may want to stick to the same general size you started with when you are ready to make your composite.
After creating a composite that you like, click "Save this one" button to download to your computer. Photos evaporate off the server within a few hours, so save the images that you want to keep by downloading them back onto your computer or transloading them to your image host.
The two most common upload error messages will be file size and file type.
Not a supported image type.
The stitcher currently supports only JPG and GIF images. To change an image to a different file type, the photo must be run through an image processor. Simply changing the file suffix won't work. So if the file suffix does not match the actual image type, and it arrives at the server, the server will reject it as the wrong image type.
Specified maximum file size exceeded.
Terms used here:
The server will accept photos that are up to 1MB in file size. Usually, an image that comes straight off a camera that is set to a resolution of 1MP or 2MP will have a file size that is less than about 650KB. That size is based on the camera using jpeg compression of around 96% quality. We recommend using a camera setting of no more the 2MP because anything higher will slow transfers, waste memory, and will not improve image quality on the web. The higher camera settings are suitable for creating large paper prints.
If the photo is subsequently modified in an image editor, the file will be decompressed in order to display the image in the editor. Therefore, after editing, the user should recompress the file to squeeze it back down to a smaller size again. Image editors often have the compression or jpeg quality setting on the "Save As" screen. Choose a high quality (low compression), but do NOT use 100% or "no compression" as that will result in a significantly oversized file. For comparison, MS Paint automatically applies compression equivalent to about 75% jpeg quality. eBay compresses to 80% jpeg quality. This tool compresses to 90% quality.
The "Make" button will check your layout for a few common design errors before continuing.
Right panel is empty and open.
If the right panel is empty and is left wide open, a reminder message will pop up asking if you want to continue or cancel and close the panel. To close the panel, drag it smaller using the arrow on the colored bar underneath. The message is displayed because leaving too much white space could make your image appear smaller.
Image is not as tall as it could be.
The image initially fills the vertical space in the panel. From there, it is best to open the panel width using the arrow underneath to display more of your item. Shrinking the image to fit in the space introduces white space, which will make the resulting image appear smaller. If it is your intention to add the extra white space, then you can ignore the message and continue. Once you ignore and continue, the popups will cease to interrupt you.
Image is not displayed.
There is no error message for this, but if too much time has elapsed between uploading your image and making your composite, the uploaded images may have expired and disappeared from the server. The expiration time currently exceeds three hours.
courtesy of eBay user shipscript
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