Taking solid sports card pictures for sales listings (or just for fun) isn’t exactly rocket science. A good light source, a dark background, and a decent phone camera will get the job done just fine in most cases.
That being the case, I’m surprised daily at the poor image quality of so many sale posts on social media. And I’m even more surprised that people will bid on listings with this kind of image quality:
I’m always game for improving my listing and selling skills, and I decided to ask members of the Vintage Baseball Cards group on Facebook for their best practices. As usual, they did not disappoint.
Read on for do’s, dont’s, helpful tips and best practices for taking great sports cards pics. Cardhound has covered other aspects of listing, selling, packing, and shipping cards, but let’s home in on some key aspects of imaging.
Taking Great Pictures of Raw Cards
Raw cards are much easier to photograph, but there are a few (hopefully obvious) tips:
- Take cards out of all plastics (sleeves, loaders, card savers, etc.)
- Use good natural light or LED and a dark or contrasting background
- Place light and camera to avoid shadows
- Crop photos to focus on the card–your card pals do not want to see your feet or your crotch.
Here’s a (graded card) listing image that breaks most of those rules. Plastic, bad light, shadows, and even a body part–it doesn’t get much worse:
My pal Paul takes great raw card photos, and has a simple process: phone cam, black background, and natural light when possible. Easy and beautiful!
Other collectors showed off pictures of their lightbox setups along with resulting images:
One key point is that when taking pics of raw cards for sale purposes, it is important to provide images that give an honest view of the card. Contrast this scanned image (scanned with a Fujitsu 8170) with the blurry Mantle above :
Taking Great Pictures of Graded Cards
Graded cards are trickier to image, because of the plastic and resulting glare when taking head-on photos. Even some scanners can cast an annoying glare.
One suggestion mentioned by the group is to use PSA or SGC scans when selling. And often times, the scans are really beautiful and true. Here are a couple of my PC cards that imaged well:
Some chimed in with horror stories from relying on these 3rd party scans, however. If you are scanning, you need to be sure that the image is sharp and detailed. Compare / contrast the scan here (used by a major auction house to market the card) with the buyer’s own image taken in natural light after receiving the card. I would be upset in this case (as was the buyer):
If looking into purchasing a scanner for imaging graded cards, be sure to shop for a model with CCD (charged coupled device) as opposed to CIS (contact image sensors). In layperson’s terms, CCD is more like a camera, and is needed for ultra high-resolution imaging. A graded card is not directly on the scanner bed, and the CCD element is needed for focus.
Some suggested putting a black piece of paper behind the card being scanned.
These bad boys were scanned with an Epson V600 scanner:
Final Tips
Good images means more sales and higher prices. More importantly, strong images are good ethical practice. When buyers have confidence that your pics tell the truth about a card, you earn trust and loyalty. With no more than a phone cam and sunlight or a $10 LED, you can easily take good sports card pictures that avoid obvious rookie mistakes and from which buyers can bid with confidence.
