Processing Images for Online Listings

I’m not sure if I’ve touched on this subject yet, I probably have since photographing my items in preparation for listings strikes a real nerve with me.  Several years ago, taking pictures of my items never seemed tedious.  Now I can’t say the same.  I don’t know what changed, I really don’t.  I used to take tons of pictures of each of my items and I would list up to 10 items at a time!  Sometimes even more than that. I can honestly say that over the past 4-5 months, I have not listed one new item in my Etsy shop.  I have items that sell with regularity generating decent income and I’ve been so busy, I haven’t felt the pressure to get all of the new stuff I’ve made listed.  Well, that’s part of it.  Another part of it is finding the right camera for the job.  My iPhone does fine, but it lacks some of the finer details of a digital SLR and my digital SLR is 10 years old and lacks many of the newer features, like LED bulbs for white balance choices, etc.  Another even bigger part, perhaps the biggest, was losing the imaging software I had been using since the beginning...Google Picasa.  Google stopped supporting this incredibly powerful photo editing software in 2017.  I was stunned.  Now, it still worked, but when I got my new PC, shortly after Google pulled the plug, and installed it, it never seemed to work right.  The large folder list down the left side was gone, when I would import folders, they never showed up in the list, and once I imported an image and tried to rotate it during editing, it wouldn’t work.  I got so frustrated I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software and it got even more messed up.  I have Photoshop Elements and access to other software, but none compare to the incredibly simple, yet powerful Picasa.  None of them.  It seems every time I took pictures of my items, then tried to edit them, it became a headache-inducing experience.  So much so, that I would just give up.  I have owned several versions of ACDSee, many years ago, of course, and read that it was the closest software out there to Picasa.  I didn’t want to buy it again.  Microsoft Photo on Windows 10 has got to be the absolute WORST photo editing software out there.  And here is something that I know.  Several years ago, with Windows 7 or maybe it was XP, Microsoft offered an included photo editing suite that  was extremely similar to Picasa.  I know I remember it.  It catalogued your images and offered peppy photo editing options along with many special effects, just like Picasa.  I’ll have to look it up, I know that it came with older versions of Windows OS.  I have about 300 items that should be added to my shop, they have piled up over the months, neglected because of my unhappiness with my camera, my lighting, and my photo editing software.  So tonight, after taking lots of pictures of my items, I headed back to my computer to edit.  It all came back full force.  I scrounged around and played with Adobe Elements, pass.  Microsoft Photo, double pass.  Then back to Picasa with abysmal results.  I decided to give the uninstall and reinstall another shot before throwing in the towel to frustration.  Lo and behold it freaking worked!  It re-catalogued all of my images and edits them perfectly.  I feel like a new person, like Christmas came early.  My god I cannot believe how much easier it is to edit my photos for listings.  So very thankful that it worked.  I don’t know what happened with the Picasa that was on my computer, I don’t know how it got so corrupted, but now that’s immaterial.  Picasa, I’ve missed you!