Well thanks anyway. . .

Ok, since the whole selling "art" is new to me I decided to ask for a bit of help with my new listings.  

Now I was actually hoping some artist-y types would comment on the content of the descriptions, the keywords that work, just make sure I'm not leaving out any obvious or important details that people may want. 

I specifically asked "Help, advice, critique if you must but please be nice" now in my head this was a sing-song-y rhyme-y bit of a joke, but it lead to the first comment being a bit snarky. 😒   So I clarified "I simply meant advise on the actual listings, info, format, pricing not "hey that's amateurish and no one will pay for it" type stuff." 

Although, I find it a bit ridiculous that I had to clarify this because people use the forums all the time asking for help, and critiques and I have seen many of these people give others really good suggestions, so imagine my disappointment when it didn't work that way with my post.

Now I am aware my photos are not the greatest, I generally speaking suck at photography, but I thought I had gotten some decent photos the other day the colors were accurate, they looked good to me.  

So I was a bit sad when nearly every comment was about how bad my photos suck. 😩😖  Annoyingly the majority of the advice to use better lighting, get some white boards, etc., etc., Well I have news for you those very photos they were all putting down were in fact shot in EXACTLY the manner they were suggesting. 😕                                  

Literally, giant white board on the bench top, giant tri-folding stand up, whole bank of lights, including the fancy professional lights that came with the light box the husband got me, in front a window. Exactly what they were all trying to suggest, as if I'm a total moron and had not done all the obvious standard stuff. 😏

One person suggested a helpful keyword I had not thought of which was great. 👍  A bunch of people are trying to suggest "Staged" photos of it on a wall over a sofa or with a nice table with a vase of flowers, or those awful digital backdrops.  Now I'm all for photos of it hanging on a wall if only I had a decent wall in this house, my living room is 3 walls of windows and a built-in bookcase, my sofa is floating in the middle of the room, my fireplace has incredibly ugly brick wall and it's in a room with zero windows so worst lighting ever, the master bedroom has fugly foil infused busy ass wallpaper.  😡  I really want to take some of these suggestions but they just aren't really an option for me, this a rental house so I don't want to put more holes in the walls, there are only so many rooms and most of them have crap lighting and I can't move my whole bank of lights. ~sigh~  I did some test shots in the guest room but then they complained it was too much space and it made the artwork look small. ~eye roll~  It is small it's only an 8" inch by 10" inch canvas. 

I hate the very idea of digital backdrops they make it too easy confuse and mislead people, it screws up the scale when a small 10"x10" picture looks like it's "sofa" sized, and those fake frames don't get me started, I don't want anyone ever thinking that the painting is already framed.  I've seen so many people in the forums all confused or angry, sellers complaining that buyers don't read descriptions, buyers complaining the photos showed one thing but they got another. Yes they make nice professional looking photos, but here's the thing I'm not a "photographer"and never claimed to be.  😇

One asshat just couldn't resist "I take it you love your cat - but at a glance the image in your avatar is just a black blob."  Because why stick to the topic or be helpful when you can be a dick to a stranger on the internet?  😑  

One guy actually right clicked and stole one of my listing photos, "improved" it in whatever software he uses and convo'd it back to me like he was doing me a favor showing me how "good" they could be if I edited them properly. 😬  Unfortunately, it looked like sh*t, he just jaked up the contrast and over exposed it and made the colors completely wrong. 😐  You know the very reason I do not do such over editing because it changes the colors and makes things look wrong, which leads to unhappy buyers when they open the box and it's a different color than the photo they ordered from, also known as the thing they all bitch about that has NEVER happened to me because I don't fudge my photos, they are what they are.  😎

I may not be setting sales records but I have never once had someone complain that the item they received didn't look like they thought it would, most of the time the response is "the photos don't do it justice" "it's even more gorgeous in person". It's the under-promise/over-deliver concept, that makes for happy people when they open my packages. There is a reason my other business never had a single return in 8 years, and this one has nothing but 5 star reviews.  

So I think I'm just going to keep on doing things my own way.  I will try to get better photos.  I will try to get a few of them hanging somewhere with some stuff for scale and perspective but, I will not use digital backdrops or frames, I will not over edit them to look better than they are.  I'm not photo-shop'ing photos of my paintings to look better than the paintings, there are no super crisp details it is swirly watercolors for f*ck's sake. 😛