topic Re: eBay images in Seller Central

eBay images

cke786 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:26:28 GMT

Anybody know why eBay reduces image brightness by 5%?

Re: eBay images

missdollydaydream — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:40:55 GMT

I didn't know they did. Where are you seeing this?

Re: eBay images

gatefittingsdirect — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:07:57 GMT

There are photo tools including brightness in editing

Re: eBay images

missdollydaydream — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:58:44 GMT

Yes, but eBay aren't imposing any modification.

Re: eBay images

neovass0 — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 01:21:48 GMT

They do like to randomly rotate my images sometimes, lol. But yes, the edit feature is an optional tool (as far as I am aware) and can be a useful feature.

Re: eBay images

marco@ebay — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:04:23 GMT

Hi cke786, thanks for your post.

Could you please confirm how do you know the brightness was reduced and specifically 5%? I can take a look, but you'd need to show me an example, so I can report it to our technical team in case there is something wrong with it, so it can be corrected.

Thank you,

Marco

Re: eBay images

cke786 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 10:43:08 GMT

Because I work with images 9-12 hours per day, often longer on the weekends! Plus using the HSB shows that it the image on eBay has been reduced to 95% Brightness, ie a reduction of 5%. I've checked all my other images on eBay, they have all been reduced by -5%.

Here is an example:

Re: eBay images

cke786 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 10:45:26 GMT

On all of the images I uploaded for our listings.

Re: eBay images

the-layer-laboratory — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:09:38 GMT

I can confirm that since the last major visual refresh of the site a couple of years ago, all images display with a 5% transparency black overlay.

At a guess, it is to delineate product images as clean 'boxes' on a pure white background. The only other solution would be to introduce borders to images.

Re: eBay images

cke786 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:18:19 GMT

That would be the better option! They use borders all over the site, but not for the images.... that's foolish!

Re: eBay images

marco@ebay — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 14:48:38 GMT

Thanks for your reply, cke786.

Often when images are uploaded to sites, forums, social media channels, etc, it is normal for them lose some resolution, compression or even brightness. For better understanding, this is basically, but not the same, as uploading a file/image to a cloud, everyone who has access to the cloud, can see the file/image, and this how all users have visibility on your images.

This is why the final result might be slightly different to what you expect, I am fairly sure this is what is happening here. However, I will report it just in case there is something else going on, but to set the right expectation, I believe they might come back to me with the same.

Thank you,

Marco

Re: eBay images

4_bathrooms — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 15:33:34 GMT

@the-layer-laboratory wrote:
I can confirm that since the last major visual refresh of the site a couple of years ago, all images display with a 5% transparency black overlay.

Well spotted!

@the-layer-laboratory wrote:

At a guess, it is to delineate product images as clean 'boxes' on a pure white background. The only other solution would be to introduce borders to images.

I agree - the image container is always visible as a square with rounded corners. If you uploaded a stock image with a pure white background there would be no defined image boundary without the overlay - i.e. the overlay causes a pure white background to appear as a very light shade of grey.

Re: eBay images

rainbowtrax — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 17:15:31 GMT

Yes, it's infuriating and has been raised before to no avail - although I don't think it was specifically identified as 5% last time it was discussed.

They also dull the images in ebay shops in the same way. Eg, if you use the advertising banner feature on your shop homepage, even this is dulled by 5% by the addition of ebay's obsessive use of this ugly grey overlay. They introduced it when they revamped the design of ebay shops and removed a lot of their functionality - which must be at least five years ago now. Why they can't just do the sensible thing and use a thin black border around images while keeping the background the correct pure white I will never understand.

marco@ebay it's not due to a loss of resolution, it's a deliberate and programmed addition of a 5% dull grey background overlaid onto all images uploaded. It's horrible and a normal border with images kept the correct colour would be far better - and more accurate for listing images.

Re: eBay images

theelench — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:17:07 GMT

Something I've often wondered about and not only my photos on ebay. I take photos of coloured clear glass that shines after a wash and polish, on a sheet of white plastic. On the listing the background is grey and the glass can look dull. If anything, on the other site, the 'greying' can be worse than on ebay and I do all my editing on W11 File Explorer, never tried the ebay editor.

At least I now know it's not just me and my poor photography or editing.

Re: eBay images

cke786 — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 10:11:18 GMT

When eBay makes changes to their website, it always makes things worse for sellers!

Re: eBay images

marco@ebay — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 15:05:23 GMT

Hi cke786, thanks for your patience around this.

I've just been confirmed that this wouldn't be a technical issue, this is something that can happen when uploading your photos.

I've passed feedback around this stating your points, so this can be taking into consideration for future updates on our site. However, please note that this doesn't necessarily means that the suggestions will be onboarded.

Thank you,

Marco

Re: eBay images

rainbowtrax — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:21:29 GMT

marco@ebay, you're right in that it's not a tech issue, as in some sort of glitch, but nor is it something that can happen when uploading photos. It's a deliberately programmed darkening by 5% of all images that are uploaded to ebay - which is causing everything to display not true to the actual colour - which is crazy when images form part of the description and are what many buyers base their purchasing decisions on.

It's ebay's programming that's causing the problem by adding a 5% grey overlay, as shown in post #12 above, not anything being lost during image upload. To correct the error and have images display correctly, the grey overlay just needs to be removed from the programming and replaced with a basic image border instead.

Re: eBay images

cke786 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:27:35 GMT

Yep, they just need to delete the code or modify it to zero and the images will display correctly and add just a border instead as suggested! 1px of course... that's all that's really needed!! I can even supply the code if the eBay technical team can't figure it out!!

Re: eBay images

moonlight-rhapsody — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:05:24 GMT

"I've just been confirmed that this wouldn't be a technical issue, this is something that can happen when uploading your photos."

I hate to say this, but I'm afraid that is nonsense. It's obviously a grey background colour that ebay has deliberately added in order to differentiate the image area from the rest of page which is white. Personally the grey background doesn't bother me, but being fobbed off with nonsense as if it is fact is something that does bother me. Whoever "confirmed" it has put you in the invidious position of having to tell forum members something that is patently untrue. That is not a good thing to do because it throws into question whether other things that we are told are true or not.

Re: eBay images

rainbowtrax — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 12:35:33 GMT

marco@ebay could you get them to read this thread so that they can hopefully understand what they've done wrong and how to correct it as it's literally there in the screenshots for anyone to see? Then they can make a quick tweak to put it right or, if they really don't know how to do it, let @cke786 tell them what they need to put. It really is just a find and replace situation.