For all you sellers out there.....

Iowa Mike

Iowa Mike

Yabaiyo
Silver Member
Not sure if this needed to be posted elsewhere but, I thought that I would put it here because it pertains to helping you sell you wares. I would like to recommend www.xs.to - for picture hosting. I have no stake in the company its free to upload. You can upload pictures up to 2mb which will allow you to get much more detailed photos of cues. This will save time when someone wants to see a better pic. They have to PM you you have to get it then create an email and attach pictures and yadda yadda yadda. This takes time and it is frustrating. Especially when you are looking at multi-thousand dollar cues. You want to be able to look at a 2-4mp photo of the inlays and such. The photo I inserted into here is a Sony 3.2 MP set to fine and it is only 1.2 MB so you still have some room if you have a 4-5MP digital camera.

Anyway, the site is nice cause when you are done it gives you multiple ways to list it. Including forum code and embedded forum code. As well as direct links to your pics.

Forum code that displays a thumbnail that links to your full-sized image:



You can upload anonymously or you can give an email address, I recommend a free email address or a secondary one in case they send you spam.

I'm not saying what your doing is wrong I'm just saying that looking through the forums and I see cues trying to be sold with these small pictures sometimes with not much detail. If I was going to buy a cue I would want nice big pictures. As the forum limits you to sizes this site is a nice alternative specifically designed for putting links in forums and web pages.

Doing it this way will be easier for you in the long run so you don't have to e-mail them off to a bunch of people. I have used photobucket and others and find them wanting not to mention that they delete my pics randomly and find that for forums and ebay etc this site rocks.

Hope this helps you guys!!!!!

:thumbup:
 
oh yeah..

I have been using the site for 2 years so as far as I can tell it's not a here today gone tomorrow operation.

:grin:
 
Thanks for the tip!

Thats a pretty close picture of that cue. Any better I'd be able to see THRU it!
 
Hey Mike...educate me a bit. I've only seen Bludworth's with the red dot. Whats with the red B?
 
Anyway... You can upload to photobucket and photobucket shrinks your image, regardless the size you are uploading and you can paste the image link in a way bigger format on your post on AZ. Successful sales is synonymous of great images and less clicking. The xs.to site is not for me thanks. Also if you pay the super cheap yearly fee for photobucket you get a ton a features for the money but it also free as well.
To me is photobucket all the way. Thanks for sharing your info anyway.
 
Understood..

BENFICA said:
Anyway... You can upload to photobucket and photobucket shrinks your image, regardless the size you are uploading and you can paste the image link in a way bigger format on your post on AZ. Successful sales is synonymous of great images and less clicking. The xs.to site is not for me thanks. Also if you pay the super cheap yearly fee for photobucket you get a ton a features for the money but it also free as well.
To me is photobucket all the way. Thanks for sharing your info anyway.
Click to expand...

I get what you are saying. But, when we are talking about cues worth 1000's of dollars do you think that a potential buyer cares about 1 click or bigger more detailed pictures?

Just my 2 cents.

The images that can be displayed in the AZ forums for size and detail pale in comparison to a 4MP Fine detailed picture at full size. Obviously each seller has a preference and ease of use and less clicking are key. But, baby whooooo. Look at the size and detail you can get. Sick. LOL

Thanks for your reply BENFICA!
 
The red B...

Varney Cues said:
Hey Mike...educate me a bit. I've only seen Bludworth's with the red dot. Whats with the red B?
Click to expand...

Bludworth cues use both identifying marks. Most people think that it is the difference between Leonard (Circle B) and Donald (Red Dot). However, I spoke with Leonard a couple months ago and he said that Donald when making cues was allowed to use either. My Bludworth was made in 1997-98 and it seems that the Circle B was used more in the past and the Red Dot is the newer evolution of his signature mark.

If you look at the cue gallery on Leonard's page: Bludworth Cues

You can just make out the Circle B at the bottom of the cues. I have attached a modification of the picture on the site for ease of viewing.

From Leonard's mouth (from what I can remember) "It doesn't mean anything just different mark we have used."

bludworth.cues.pic.modified.JPG
 
It has to do with photographer not the image hosting site. I would rather see the detail right away on AZ, once again avoiding extra clicks. This image is being hosted on photobucket:

IMG_4693.jpg
 
not bad..

BENFICA said:
It has to do with photographer not the image hosting site. I would rather see the detail right away on AZ, once again avoiding extra clicks. This image is being hosted on photobucket:

IMG_4693.jpg
Click to expand...


That's a pretty good image. But, what if a potential buyer wanted a higher res picture of the cue? Namely a full size 4MP photo. You said photobucket resizes your photos. This is not a dig... However, you failed to read my posting fully I said that they give you many options including the one that you are showing me here (embedded) plus the other options.

Quote from original post: Anyway, the site is nice cause when you are done it gives you multiple ways to list it. Including forum code and embedded forum code. As well as direct links to your pics.



Again I'm not saying that your way is wrong just that I have come to believe in the ability of being able to post full res pictures from this site. I have sold many many computer related items on eBay this way where people wanted to make sure that there were no scratches on discs and that board serial number matched up etc.. I would think that with cues this would need to be even more detailed.

That being said BENFICA - if you look through the forums your picture posted there is definitely one of the better ones I have seen. Which tells me that either people have low quality cameras or they are trying to meet the size requirements of AZ Forums. Likely the former since even 2MP cameras are coming in cell phones these days. Realistically I would probably do 2 things I would take the full res picture and upload to xs.to then re-upload it to xs.to using their auto resizer (option) and put the thumbnail code shown in my first post if someone wanted the higher res version of the picture that way if they are satisfied with the initial one then they don't have to click. Because, putting an image this large on the forum is annoying and takes time to load. However, I can say one thing if you give someone the option to see a very high res picture of the cue they are looking at they will probably want to see it.

Thanks BENFICA!
 
Last edited:
This is what I was thinking...

Post your info.... blah blah blah.

Post your resized embedded pic..



Then put the thumbnail link to the high res version.



This way you have the best of both worlds. A good picture directly on the forum and if someone wants the high res version they have immediate access to it. They don't have to pm you and request it. Which will take more time and they perspective buyer has less hassle as do you.

And you are not posting an irritatingly large photo in the forum. lol

I want to say this one more time. I am not advocating the use of xs.to I have no stake in it. What I am recommending is a giving access to high resolution photos of cues and xs.to is one offering the service. If photobucket can host the full size high res photos by all means use it. I'm new to the forum and just have seen a lot of people posting pics of cues for sale etc.. and I felt they could benefit from having a place where they can really let their cue shine and possibly help them not having to retake photos and email them off.

Thanks again.

Merry X-Mas.
 
The BUMP.............. Cause I'm bored as hell!
Could not afford to play pool today cause I bought into too many damn raffles. ahhahaha


cue.post.bump.dieckman.JPG
 
Hans@Work said:
FWIW...http://imagevenue.com/ allows any size photo, doesn't resize the images, and does everything you guys are arguing over. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Does not allow any size photo 3mb max (although 1mb more than xs.to)

However, my entire point which I said multiple times is that I am not advocating the use of xs.to in particular. Simply, some way that we can get access to higher resolution photos. I was offering an opinion, and an option if people did not already know of a way.

Thanks

P.S. I don't think that BENFICA and I are "arguing" lively debate I think would be a better description.
 
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