eBay photo requirements

Square, 1600 x 1600 pixels, JPEG.

That sits on eBay's own recommendation of about 1600 x 1600, it fills the square search grid without padding, and it is well inside the 12 MB limit at any sensible quality setting. There is no benefit in going far beyond it, because eBay resizes for display anyway.

If your source photo is smaller than 500 pixels on either side you cannot upload it at all. Stretching it in an editor gets you past the check and gives you a soft photo that reads as a low effort listing. An upscaler that reconstructs detail is the better option, and reshooting is better still.

Usually, but not always, and eBay is explicit about the exception.

• Most items: a plain white or very light background keeps attention on the product and matches how eBay's grid renders.
• Shiny or reflective items: eBay suggests a darker background for things like jewellery. A polished silver ring on white loses its edges entirely, because the metal reflects the backdrop it is sitting on.
• Used goods: a plain background makes wear and marks easier to see, which is what you want. Hiding a scuff in a busy background is how you get an item-not-as-described case.

Unlike Amazon and Walmart, eBay does not demand RGB 255,255,255, so a clean light grey backdrop is acceptable. If you do want a true white, replacing the background is more reliable than lighting one.

Go back to the original file if you still have it. A watermark burned into a JPEG is part of the image data, not a layer you can switch off.

If the original is gone, an object removal pass can lift a watermark, a corner badge or a price sticker out of the frame and rebuild what was behind it. Photomop is a photo studio that runs on your own device and its remove object tool handles this, though the result is only as good as what the watermark was covering: text over a plain backdrop comes out cleanly, text over patterned fabric rarely does.

The wider point is to stop adding them. eBay treats added graphics as a search placement issue, so every watermarked photo in your account is working against you.

Photograph the questions you get asked, in the order buyers care about.

• Photos 1 to 3: the whole item, front, back and at an angle, on a plain background.
• Photos 4 to 8: every flaw, close up and honestly lit. Scratches, scuffs, missing parts, stains.
• Photos 9 to 14: labels, serial numbers, size tags, model numbers, authenticity marks.
• Photos 15 onwards: what is included, packaging, accessories, cables, manuals.

Photographing damage feels like sabotage and is the opposite. A buyer who saw the scratch before paying does not open a case about the scratch.

JPEG unless you have a reason not to. eBay accepts an unusually wide list including WEBP, HEIC and AVIF, so you can upload straight from a phone or from a browser save without converting.

The reason to convert anyway is control. When you export the JPEG yourself you choose the dimensions, the quality and the colour profile. When you hand eBay a HEIC you accept whatever it produces on the way in, and orientation tags in particular are a common source of photos that arrive rotated.