1. An eye-catching picture. It’s likely a closeup showing the most gorgeous detail of something.
2. A second eye-catcher that shows more of the item.
3. A demonstration of how the item looks when worn. I don’t want to wear things that I’m going to sell, so I’ll have a bundle of fabric ‘wearing’ a necklace, or a pair of earrings hanging from a horizontal ribbon or twig.
4. Something technical. If it’s earrings I’ll show the wires or hooks in detail; if it’s a necklace or bracelet I’ll show the clasp.
5. Size scale. I usually take a picture of my hand holding the item. Nobody’s hands are exactly the same size but it gives a better estimate of scale than, say, a coin, and it’s prettier than using a ruler. (Anyone who wants exact dimensions can look in the description.)

I am not an expert at this, but that’s my script. What’s yours?

Again, we’re making a banner from your own photography. Cartoons and cute graphics are okay if people already know what you sell, but remember that on Etsy people might just click your username in the forums without any other knowledge of your shop. The banner should encourage them to scroll down, just as your avatar should encourage them to click in the first place.

Open up the image you want to use, and click on the Rectangle Select tool in the upper left of the console. Tick that little box that says Fixed: Aspect ratio, and type 760:100 in the empty field. Etsy wants banners to be 760 pixels wide and 100 pixels high, so we’re starting by cutting out a rectangle that is 760 units wide and 100 units high. We’ll resize it later.

Remember to watch at the bottom of the screen to see how big an area you are actually selecting, in pixels — if you want it to be 760 wide in the end, you must select an area that is wider than 760 pixels to start with! Otherwise it’ll end up blurry because it’ll have to be blown up instead of shrunk down.

If you’re not happy with the area you selected, hit Ctrl+z to undo it, and try again. When you’ve got it right, click Image -> Crop to selection on the top menu bar. You now have a banner that is the correct aspect ratio, but larger than you need.

Here’s the new trick for this lesson: text! If you want to put text on your banner, now’s the time to do it, before resizing.

On the left-hand console you’ll see a button with a big black letter A. Click that to open the text options. When you move your mouse over your image, you’ll see that the mouse cursor has turned into a set of crosshairs. Click approximately where you’d like the text, and start typing.

The neat thing about GIMP is that you can adjust the appearance of the text after you’ve typed it. If you don’t like the typestyle, click the button that says Aa beside the name of the font, and pick a different font. If you don’t like the size, click the little up and down arrow buttons beside the Size box. If you don’t like the colour, click the box in the text options panel that shows the current colour, and choose a different one.

If you don’t like the positioning, move your mouse over the text itself on the image, and you’ll see the cursor turn into a standard ‘move’ icon — a cross made of arrows, like a simple compass rose. Click and drag to move the text you’ve typed anywhere else on the image.

If you really need to just get rid of your text and start over, click Windows -> Dockable Dialogs on the top menu bar, and choose Layers. When you’re editing graphics you add new features to your image in layers, and each layer can remain independent so that you can edit easily. One of the layers shown will be your base image (called the background), and another one will be the text (the name of this layer will be whatever you typed — if I typed Little Raven, the layer will be called Little Raven). To get rid of it completely, click it on the Layers window, and then click the little garbage can icon in the bottom right corner of that window. (Or you can just use Ctrl+z to back up step-by-step.)

Once you have an image you like, don’t worry about the fact that there’s still a dotted line around your text. That’ll stay there as long as you’re looking at the image in GIMP, but when you save the final image to upload to Etsy, it’ll go away. Click Image -> Scale Image on the top menu bar, and type 760 in the width box. The height box should automatically change to 100. Click OK and your image will be resized to the size that Etsy needs.

Click File -> Save, type a filename, and choose JPEG for your file type. Click Save and you’ll be asked to confirm a couple of details about saving as a JPEG — move the Quality slider all the way up to 100% when it asks, and if it says JPEGs don’t support transparency (don’t worry about it, it has to do with the layers), just accept the changes.

You’re done! Visit Your Etsy and upload your banner, and admire your shiney shop layout!

I’m not getting into the minutiae of tweaking your camera’s settings, since every camera is different. Everything I list here is something you can probably do with any modern digital camera, even the cheap point-and-shoot ones. Look up the various modes and features in your camera’s manual (and remember that if you don’t have the manual, the camera manufacturer may have it online).

1) Use a tripod. Holding onto the camera makes it shake, and that shake can be picked up as blurriness in the finished picture. Even cheap cameras have a threaded hole on the bottom for a tripod, and tripods themselves are cheap — if you don’t want to go all-out on an expensive Manfrotto or something, go to a big-box electronics store and buy a little tabletop tripod for under $20.

2) Use the timer setting. Again, even cheap point-and-shoot cameras often have a timer, since a lot of people like to set up a picture and then run to be in it. In the case of product photography, this is one more thing that will let you take a picture without touching the camera and introducing shake. The timer setting is usually indicated by a little clock icon.

3) Use natural lighting. Lightboxes are neat, but they really just try to emulate the indirectness and colourlessness of natural light. If you have a room with windows, open all the curtains wide and set up your item to be photographed so that no sunbeam is falling directly on it. If you think it’s too cloudy or too dark out to take pictures, try it anyways and see what you get. If you find that your ideal lighting doesn’t naturally happen often enough, then build yourself a lightbox. A lightbox or proper natural lighting will let you take pictures without flash, which is a good thing, because flash introduces glare and funny colours.

4) Use the macro setting. Many cameras have preset modes for different kinds of pictures. Macrophotography means closeup shots (think about taking pictures of flowers or bugs), and that’s what you’re probably doing if you’re photographing something like jewelry or toys. Your camera’s preset macro mode is probably indicated by a little icon that looks like a tulip.

5) Choose your background wisely. Avoid complex patterns, because your item will get lost in them. Use solid colours that contrast with the colours of your item, and try to get textures that don’t glare too much (no glossy paper) or that show up imperfections (no fuzzy fabrics with cat hair clinging to them). To get a variety of colours cheap, go to an art store and get a selection of cardstock or fancy paper, or go to a fabric store and buy a yard each of different colours of cheap cotton broadcloth.

In the jargon of the internet, an avatar is a little graphic or symbol that represents you. On Etsy, your avatar is a small square picture. It’s stuck to all of your Forum posts and Storque comments, it pops up on the bottom panel of Chatrooms that you visit, and in the Virtual Labs you can move your avatar around the room and people throw hearts and stuff at it. (If you haven’t tried that, do so. It’s fun.) If you don’t upload a custom avatar of your own to Etsy, your avatar will just be a white square with the first letter of your username.

The most eyecatching avatars, in my humble opinion, are the ones that show products. A picture of your face might look friendly, but your interactions on Etsy aren’t just social. You want to use all the space you’re given to attract people to your shop.

Choose one of your photographs and open it up in GIMP. Remember that Rectangle Select button from last time? Click that, and look at the lower half of the left-hand control panel. There will be a tickbox there that says Fixed: and a pulldown menu that says aspect ratio (if it doesn’t already say that, click it and choose it), and a white bar where you can type.

Tick the box, and type 1:1 in the text bar. You’ll be selecting an area with an aspect ratio of 1:1, which means the horizontal sides will be the same length as the vertical sides — in other words, it’ll be a square. (If you typed 2:1, you’d get a box that was twice as wide as it was tall; if you typed 1:2 you’d get a box twice as tall as it was wide. Get the idea?)

Now click on the image and drag, and you’ll see that dotted outline drawing a square around part of your image. When you’re holding down the mouse button and dragging it, the size of your selected area will display at the bottom of the screen. Since you’re going to be resizing this image to 50×50 pixels (which is the size Etsy wants for avatars), you want to select an area that’s bigger than 50×50. If you select an area that’s smaller, resizing to 50×50 will make it larger, and you’ll lose image quality.

If you don’t like the area you’ve selected, hit Ctrl+z to undo it, and try again until you have a square containing the image you want to have in your avatar. Then click Image -> Crop to Selection, and everything outside the square will go away.

To make it the right size, click Image -> Scale Image, and type 50 in the box where it says Width. Click in the box that says Height and it should automatically change that to 50 as well. Click OK, and your square image will be resized to 50×50 pixels. Click File -> Save As… to choose a file type and filename for it, and you’re ready to upload it to Etsy!

Next time: the elusive shop banner, made from the best of your product images!

(Support ethical treasure hunting — only buy from certified naturally-abandoned hoards!)

Item #2 — My Darling Buds earrings have been selected for a flower-themed vote in the Storque!

Leave a comment here for your chance to win this sweet springtime-hued bracelet! I’ll make a random draw from all comments on Saturday, 16 May, at 9 am Eastern time, and contact the winner for a shipping address.

Irregular pink glass crystals and silver-toned seed beads compliment strangely organic green shapes and pink hearts with green-and-pink iridescent finish on one side.

At 23.5 cm (9 1/4″), this is suitable for a larger wrist and hand.