Preparing photos for listings: size, cropping, metadata

A family in Wettingen is clearing out. The pram is no longer needed, the old bike has to go, and the attic room is being sublet for six months. All three need photos for a listing. One of the parents takes them quickly with a phone: the pram in the living room, the bike in front of the garage, the room with the view from the window.

Looking through them, a few things stand out. In the pram photo, the younger daughter is sitting on the sofa in the background. In front of the garage is the car with its number plate. And in the mirror in the attic room, the parent can be seen, phone in hand.

What a listing photo should show

A good photo for a listing shows the item: all of it, well lit, without distractions. Anyone who wants to buy or rent wants to be able to judge its condition — scratches on the frame, the size of the room, the light. Three things help:

• Several views instead of a single picture: from the front, from the side, a detail.
• A calm background against which the item is easy to see.
• A crop that shows what matters and leaves out the rest.

What it should not show

Cropping is not only about the effect, but also about what else can be seen in the picture.

People. The FDPIC states that every person has a right to their own image and in principle decides for themselves whether and in what form an image of them is published. As soon as a person is recognisable, the photo is personal data. The Civil Code protects personality against unlawful infringement (Art. 28 CC). For a listing, in practical terms, this means: the daughter on the sofa does not belong in the picture — and neither does one’s own reflection in the mirror of the attic room.

Clues to the address. A number plate, a house number, a letter on the table or a distinctive view from the window can give away where a photo was taken. For the bike in front of the garage, a different framing is enough.

Personal things. Photos, diplomas, calendars on the wall or papers on the desk say a lot about the people who live there. For the room, it is worth tidying up briefly before taking the photos.

Flats and flat-shares

When subletting, the photos often show not just one room but also the kitchen, bathroom and living room that others share. Anyone living in a flat-share asks their flatmates before taking photos — after all, it is also about their rooms, their things and themselves. For photos, the FDPIC distinguishes between group pictures and pictures of individual people, and recommends obtaining consent when in doubt. For a listing, the simplest solution is to photograph rooms when nobody is in them.

The order of the pictures

The first photo is the one that appears in the overview of listings. It is best to show the whole item or the whole room. Details follow and, honestly, the weak points: the scratch on the frame, the worn handle. Showing defects saves discussions at the handover.

The location in the file

What cannot be seen in the picture can still be in the file. Photos from phones often contain metadata: the time taken, the device and, if location services were switched on, the exact place the photo was taken. For photos taken at home, that is one’s own address. How to find and remove this information is described in the post Location in a photo.

Whether a platform removes such metadata on upload is not always visible from the outside. Anyone who wants to be sure removes it themselves beforehand.

If someone is in the picture after all

Sometimes a person is only noticed once the listing is already online — the neighbour in the background, the visitor at the table. The FDPIC describes that people whose image has been published without justification can, among other things, request its deletion. It is simpler for everyone to replace the photo straight away in such a case. And because pictures from listings can be copied and passed on, the second look is better taken before uploading than after.

Size and format

Listing platforms may limit the file size and the number of pictures; the details are given by each platform. A photo from a current phone is usually larger than necessary. For a listing, a resolution that looks good on a screen is enough — that saves time when uploading and spares the data allowance of people looking at the listing on the go.

As for format, JPEG is the widespread format for photos. Photos from an iPhone in HEIC format can be converted to JPEG beforehand if a platform does not accept them.

Photos from the internet

For the pram, it is tempting to use the manufacturer’s attractive product picture instead of a photo of one’s own. Copyright law sets a limit here. Photographic reproductions of three-dimensional objects count as works, even if they have no individual character (Art. 2 para. 3bis CopA). And the author has the exclusive right to decide whether, when and how the work is used (Art. 10 para. 1 CopA).

A photo of one’s own has an advantage anyway: it shows the item that is actually being sold, with its signs of use. That builds trust and saves follow-up questions.

After the sale

Once the pram is sold, the listing has served its purpose. Deactivating or deleting it afterwards also takes the photos that show the home off the internet — especially when subletting, where the pictures show one’s own room.

For the family in Wettingen

The parent goes through the photos once more. The pram photo is cropped so that the daughter can no longer be seen; the bike is photographed again, in front of the wall of the house instead of in front of the car. In the attic room, the mirror is taken down briefly for the photo. All the pictures are scaled down, saved as JPEG and uploaded without metadata.

The image tools we are building will crop, rotate, resize and convert images and strip their metadata — processed in Switzerland, in memory, without any image being kept, and in confidential mode for private photos entirely on your own device.