Bike Photo Tips

Taking Good Photos

Photos taken in natural light look warmer than photos taken with indoor lighting or a flash.

Contrast is important too. A black bike against a black wall won't look very good, especially if it is hard to make out the details. Play with contrast settings in your photo editing program to get better results.

Frame the photo to include all the bike that you want to showcase in a particular photo. Crop the photo before you upload if you can remove distracting parts of the shot.

Focus is important, and can be troublesome if your camera uses an autofocus system. Most digital cameras with autofocus operate on a 1/2 push of the shutter button - you push down 1/2 way and the camera focuses on what is in the middle of the frame. Try to get a clear, crisp image of the part of the photo you want to highlight.

Getting People to Notice Your Bike

Photo one, the first photo you upload, is important. Photo one is the large photo which represents your bike on the Thumbnails page. Check out that page and look for good photos of bikes (eye-catching ones) and emulate those. A popular shot for Photo one is a "drive side" (so the chain and chainring can be seen) view which shows the entire bike from front to back.

The other photos you upload will be thumbnailed and run through a script which displays random thumbs on the front page. Photos which catch the eye of visitors will get more people looking at your bike.