Image Manual

      IMAGES FOR THINGS

 

Most things in Allzthings require a matching picture.

It is very important that you make that photograph or scan and that you don’t take it from the web. No websubmitting is allowed !!!

You are the photographer and by photographing you emphasize you have the thing in your hands.

We cannot emphasize this enough: do not submit something by simply taking it from the web !

 

But how do you add a good picture ?

Guideline 1: All pictures have an UNIFORM WHITE SEAMLESS background
a) UNIFORM: that means that we want all pictures to look the same way

b) WHITE: that means that all pictures will be taken with a white background

c) SEAMLESS: that means you don’t see corners or bends in the background

 

Let’s get a bit deeper into that:

a) UNIFORM: this mainly is matter of aesthetics: it just looks so much better if all pictures are taken in the same style.

b) WHITE: everybody can make a white background and a white background makes sure that all the attention goes to the thing. Put it on a white paper, before a white wall, in a bath tub, …
So we certainly don’t want a piece of carpet, a brown table, a peek into your living room etc. on the picture.

The only thing visible must be the thing, and/or, it’s (mostly) white background.

For scanned pictures, like books, magazines, DVD’s etc, that is not difficult as you can simply crop neatly around the thing.

For more “3D” things like bottles of wine, glasses, etc. you need to make a white background. That is very simple as we will explain under c)

c) SEAMLESS: you might think that it is difficult to make pictures where it looks as if there is no background, but is very easy to do.
We do accept pictures taken in front of a white wall, but if you want to go all the way her is how to make a seamless white background:

c.1 Take a large piece of paper and simply bend it like a skateboard quarter pipe. There you are.
For very big things you might consider a white sheet or something like that.
c.2 Check your bath tub ! If it’s clean and white it will make the perfect background ! I’ve put LaserDisc boxsets in there, toys, bottles, you name it ! 
c.3 If you don’t have a bath tub you might look for a white plastic non-perforated laundry basket. Put it in vertical position and there you are!

So you see, it really isn’t that hard nor expensive to get the picture right.
If you want to put some lights on these, go ahead, it often will make it look even better !

Remember: you are the photographer, so you can make it look real nice !

 

C.  FREE SOFTWARE : Paint.NET

Paint.NET is free software that has everything you need to make decent pictures.
You can find it on www.tucows.com

Let’s take a quick look at the functions you will need:

1. Layers – Rotate / Zoom

Very often the pictures you took are not perfectly straight. Imagine a beer bottle that tilts to the left like the tower of Pisa … You really should try to get is as straight as an arrow.
With this function you can tilt the image.

You see that little level in the Roll / Rotate circle? That one makes it very easy. Notice that it is very sensible, but you can “drag the lever” to the right of your screen and then the movements will be softened.

2. Image – Crop To Selection

Draw a rectangle and use this button to cut away everything outside the borders.
Always try to obtain a final shape close to a square (or a 2:3 rectangle) if it is possible: if for instance you took a picture of a knife, don’t cut everything away so that you end up with a tiny small long picture, but leave a lot of white so you will obtain a more balanced picture.
Books, magazines, record sleeves, etc. are of course cropped neatly around the edges.

3. Image – Resize

Actually this is optional since the upload program will resize everything to 750 x … or … x 750 but it is good to know that.
There is also one exception:  if you make the largest size 900 pixels (that can be the height or the width, as long as the other side is smaller), than the uploader will leave the picture unaltered.
This is useful for pictures with a lot of small print where 750 pixels would render it unreadable.

4. File – Save As

You’re all done now. Just save it as a .jpg and it is ready for upload !

 

 Thank you very much for your support !