The GIF image format is best suited to non photographic images due to the limitation that an individual GIF can only contain a maximum of 256 different colours. GIF's are typically used in Logo's, Buttons and Icons. The GIF image format also supports the inclusion in a single file of multiple images which are then shown in sequence to produce a moving image, these are called Animated GIF's, the e-mail button at the bottom of this page is an Animated GIF. (Animation can also be achieved using Java Script and multiple individual images).

The JPG or JPEG image format is best suited for photographic images due to its support for 24 million different colours per image. Compression in a JPG image is achieved partly when the image is saved by a user definable level of detail in the image being discarded, because of this if a JPG image is repeatedly edited in an image editing program the image will gradually degrade in quality, the number of times this can be done before the change becomes noticeable depends upon the amount of compression applied. Viewing, copying, moving uploading to a web server or downloading has no impact on a JPG's image quality. The JPG image format is sometimes described as lossy because of the loss of quality each time the image is edited.

Most Digital Camera's save the pictures taken in JPG format. If your camera does not use the JPG image format the software which come with the camera will usually be capable of saving in JPG format.

When adding pictures to your auction listing you can either let eBay host the picture or host them elsewhere, there are advantages and disadvantages associated with both....

• You can either host your images on a 'specialist' Image Hosting Service or you might be able to use you own Internet Service Provider.
• When naming your images it is best to stick to a single case, ie lower, and to not include any spaces in the name, if you want to break the name up use _ (underscore) or - (minus) characters instead.

  Using Your ISP
  

  • Freeserve, Tiscali (who also own World Online, Lineone, Tiny & Screaming Net), AOL, BTInternet/Openworld and Demon all provide web space to their users, as do many others.
  • To upload your pictures your ISP may provide a web page where you enter the image names and location on your PC into a form and the files are then uploaded, in much the same way as iPix works. But it is more normal for you to have to use a separate File Transfer Protocol program to upload your files, many ISP's provide a link to WS_FTP LE by Ipswitch (which is free for personal use) and basic instruction on its use.
  • Most FTP programs, including WS_FTP, have Windows Explorer like windows one of which shows the drives, folders and files on your PC and the other shows the folders & files on the remote web server. Files can be selected on either machine and copied to the other one.
  • You may also be required to have a default web page, an index.html file, present in your web space, here is a basic index.html file, which will open in its own window, for you to save on your PC and upload to your web space.
  • The URL for your web space will typically either be in the form
    http://myuserid.myisp/
    or
    http://myisp/myuserid/

    in either case once you have loaded some pictures and an index.html file to your web space you should be able to see the images by entering your web space URL plus image name into you web browsers address bar and pressing enter,

    ie http://myuserid.myisp/myimagename.gif.

  • If you can see your image you are ready to add it to your Auction listing. If you cannot see the image
    • check the spelling of the URL & picture name
    • check that there is a / between the web space URL and picture name
    • remove any spaces in the URL and picture name
    • check the image was uploaded fully (compare file sizes, using your FTP program)
  • To add a single image to your auction listing type the images url, exactly as you typed it into your browsers address bar, in the box circled below when adding your item on eBay

The image will appear between your item description text and the Honesty Counter.
• If you want to add images to your item description or add images to comments you will need to enclose the image url in the HTML image tag like this
  <img src="http://myuserid.myisp/myimagename.gif">

• If you insert all your images as HTML tags in your description text the camera icon will not be displayed unless you tick the box, as I have done in the screen print above

Using An Image Host

• The procedure for using images hosted on an Image Host is much the same as I have detailed above, they are more likely to have a form which you use to upload your pictures and there should be no need for the index.html file, but otherwise everything above is relevant.