Which iPhone would you rather buy? Would you be willing to pay a few bucks more for the nice-looking one?

Whether you’re already an Ebay Power Seller or simply have some old stuff you’d like to unload via Craigslist, good-looking product photos can not only increase your chances of finding a buyer, but also raising the price you can get. (If you doubt this, sadly we think you’re underestimating the shallowness of many.) Luckily, the quality of most eBay and Craigslist photos ranks somewhere between bad and yeesh. Using these tips, you can easily beat the competition—even shoot like the pros, and without breaking the bank. After all, we’re trying to make money here.

Difficulty level: Easy to medium

What you need:
> Digital camera, either point-and-shoot or DSLR
> Product(s) you want to sell
> White poster board or butcher paper
> Movable utility lights (optional but recommended)
> Tripod (optional but recommended)

1. Cut the clutter

Perhaps the most noticeable change you can make to improve your product photos has nothing to do with the product itself and everything to do with the backdrop. Photos with ugly or distracting backgrounds can detract from the perceived value of the item. Almost any backdrop that isn’t worn carpeting, a chewed-up table, or linoleum dating to the Eisenhower administration is a step in the right direction, but you can go further and create a professional-looking backdrop cheaply and easily.

Pros often shoot in studios with “infinity walls,” where the floor curves up to meet the wall to provide a seamless background. When evenly lit, they provide the illusion of blank, infinite nothingness. If you’re shooting something small, you can create your own infinity wall with a piece of poster board, or even butcher paper.

Lay the poster board on the floor or on a table. Place an open-topped cardboard box behind it. Then, smoothly and without creasing, bend the poster board up from the “floor” to become a “wall” and clamp the top of the board to the cardboard box. It can be difficult when shooting many products to keep white poster board clean, but it’s cheap enough to easily replace when necessary.

This brings up another point: Clean your items to match the clean backdrop you’ve just created. Lint, smudges, and fingerprints make the item look bad and make you look like a slob. Nobody wants to buy used stuff from a slob.

Step 1. DIY infinity wall: It's a good thing.

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2. De-dingify your item

Most of us think nothing of the incandescent lightbulbs in our homes and may even associate the warm light they provide with nice, quiet evenings. Such light has a less charming effect, however, when used for product photos, making your items look yellowish and dingy.

A couple of solutions, besides avoiding incandescent light completely (see step 4): First, change your camera’s white balance setting, which tells the camera what type of light you’re shooting in so it can calibrate colors accordingly. This setting will be easy to access either through the camera’s menu or, if you use a DSLR, with the dials or buttons. Choose the preset that’s closest to your lighting; the “incandescent” setting, for example, will likely be designated by a light bulb icon.

Alternatively, you can get even more ambitious and set a custom white balance. It’s a little more involved, but will always give you the most accurate color for your lighting conditions. Doing so might require digging through the camera’s manual—different makes and models have slightly different processes, but they all involve taking a picture of something pure white. This picture will be easy to capture if you’re using the white poster board solution described in step 1: Just take a picture of your backdrop without the product in the frame.

Step 2. The incandescent light gave our before photo (left) a yellowish cast that doesn't represent the item's true color.

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3. Don't be harsh

Hard-edged shadows in product shots look amateurish. If you don’t believe us, check out some magazine ads and you’ll see almost exclusively small, soft shadows or none at all. Avoiding harsh shadows is easy: Don’t let any direct light fall onto the item when photographing it. The problem, then, becomes lighting the product adequately. Pros use umbrellas and softboxes to bathe the product in diffused, “wrap-around” light, but you have several cheaper options.

First, photograph the item during daylight near a window but not when direct sunlight is coming through. Shoot from the window toward the product to avoid backlighting. If you can place the product near two windows letting in indirect sunlight, that’s even better. You’ll want to use the “shadow” white balance setting on your camera or, again, set a custom white balance.

Second, if indirect daylight isn’t an option or isn’t bright enough, use a room with white walls and a white ceiling as a giant photo umbrella. Use two, three, or more utility lights pointed upward and away from the product to bounce their light off the walls and ceiling behind you. The bounced light will wrap around the product, creating even illumination and good-looking shadows. Just make sure the lights don’t shine into the camera, causing a bunch of flare. And, again, try different white balance presets or set a custom one. Some trial-and-error may be called for with this setup, but don’t worry—unlike pets and people, products don’t get impatient waiting for you to get it right.

Step 3. That harsh shadow is distracting from Gargie's natural beauty.

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Next: More tips on perfecting your lighting, focus, angle, and sharpness.

4. Stop flashing me

If you’re shooting using an automatic mode (like the close-up mode, often designated by a flower icon), your camera may insist on activating its onboard flash. If incandescent light is ugly, the on-camera flash is usually hideous. Flash not only causes shadows that are unbelievably harsh (and often comically distorted), but also washes out much of the item’s detail, particularly if it’s at all reflective.

Unfortunately, when a camera automatically kicks in with the flash, it often means there isn’t enough light. Using more or brighter lights may automatically solve the problem. If the camera still insists on popping off the flash, you may once again have to hunt through the settings. Often, an option exists that’s still an automatic mode but that specifically keeps the flash from firing. (On some cameras, this is called “museum” mode.)

If you simply can’t light the item adequately without flash, you can minimize the damage using certain backdrops. The white poster board solution in step 1 will probably show harsh shadows, but not as badly as some other backdrops. Better yet, shoot against an entirely black backdrop that will absorb the flash and hide the hard shadows. Black cloth works well if you can keep it from wrinkling.

Step 4. On the left, the camera's flash blows out the details. Using a black backdrop (right) absorbs the extra light.

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5. Caffiene overdose much?

Shaky camera work is great for cheap horror movies, but not so good for product shots. Stabilizing your camera will reduce or eliminate camera shake and give you a sharper photo.

Tripods, of course, are king. If you have one, this is the time to break it out—no excuses! If you don’t have one, try bracing the camera on a table or door jam. A cushion or microbead pillow can be a miracle device in this situation, allowing you to press the camera into it for good stabilization while retaining maneuverability. Oh, and hold your breath when you press the shutter button—it really does help.

Step 5. Time to switch to decaf.

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6. Back off a bit

Two problems result from placing the camera too close to products when shooting. First, it distorts the product, sometimes drastically. This can be a cool effect for certain print ads, but is probably not what you want for a simple Craigslist posting. Backing off a bit and zooming in will capture a much more natural-looking shot.

Second, shooting from too close can cause your autofocus to balk. Most cameras allow decently close focusing, but if your autofocus starts endlessly “hunting,” racking in and out because it’s unable to lock on, it’s probably because you’re not far enough away from the item.

If you shoot from too far away, however, camera shake is exacerbated. So make sure to use the tips in step 5 to stabilize the camera.

Step 6. The top picture is out of focus because we were too close. Better to back off a bit—you can always crop later.

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7. Play the angles

Many, if not most, eBay and Craigslist shots couldn’t be more boring because the seller photographed the product dead on from one side. With some products that works OK, but most will benefit from being angled. The classic approach involves shooting from about a 45-degree angle from the front and from 30 to 45 degrees above. The best angle will vary by item.

Shooting at an angle is more attractive, showing more of the product and making it more tangible. Plus, it helps you avoid ugly reflections from the product itself, if it’s at all reflective.

Speaking of reflections, if you’re shooting larger items and thus have to widen your shot to include most of a room, watch out for other surfaces that might reflect lights, the camera, or even you. Some eBay sellers have inadvertently (or, we suspect, quite on purpose) included distant mirrors in their shots and revealed more than just their for-sale detritus to the world—like their preference for shooting while nude. Don’t be that guy.

Step 7. Straight on = boring. Angled = sold!