I agree with using sloppy scans. There is no need to be a high price dealer to list good quality scans. I use a low cost Cannon scanner and get great scans. On top of scans, I do not like the use of Photos. They usually are not clear and usually taken at an angle.
Photos can work. We used a Sony SLR for years, hand held, with a very strong Macro lens. We got great shots with good resemblance of color, and could do good closeups, but it was very time consuming. Then we went to scanners, and we had no end of accusations of "altering the image", which we didn't do beyond cropping. We're back to using overhead camera, BUT it's a fixed camera, great 4K USB that connects directly to the PC, so we don't have to transfer images around. We have good lighting control with a few positional lights that we use, and we're back to great images, true to the stamp, and never ever at an angle. One advantage is we can take shots of a single stamp, or a page or two in one go. We can either crop those out individually, or put up the whole listing. This takes a fraction of a second to get the image, and we're always editing for cropping and rotation. The speed we gained literally allowed us to list 3 times more a day than with the scanner, at better quality with cleaner images.
It takes some time to "tinker" with it initially to discover what works. I think this is where many people give up, thinking it will be like this for every image, but once you get a process down, and your setup dialed in, it is insanely fast.
Comments
We're back to using overhead camera, BUT it's a fixed camera, great 4K USB that connects directly to the PC, so we don't have to transfer images around. We have good lighting control with a few positional lights that we use, and we're back to great images, true to the stamp, and never ever at an angle. One advantage is we can take shots of a single stamp, or a page or two in one go. We can either crop those out individually, or put up the whole listing. This takes a fraction of a second to get the image, and we're always editing for cropping and rotation. The speed we gained literally allowed us to list 3 times more a day than with the scanner, at better quality with cleaner images.
It takes some time to "tinker" with it initially to discover what works. I think this is where many people give up, thinking it will be like this for every image, but once you get a process down, and your setup dialed in, it is insanely fast.