Photo Editing & Retouching for Etsy Sellers
Professional photo editing and retouching for Etsy sellers, from $0.39 an image. Strip a handmade piece onto pure white and it stops looking handmade, so the edit stays gentle: light and colour fixed, maker’s marks untouched. Pixel Retouching has run Etsy listing editing since 2014, from ISO-certified studios in Singapore and Dhaka.
After editBefore
Hover to see before
Send three listings shot at home. You get them back looking like your work, not like a warehouse.
The same studio behind two hundred brands, at single-seller scale
There is no minimum order. One listing is a valid job, and it is edited by the same retouchers who handle four-thousand-image catalogues.
Why Handmade Photographs Are Their Own Problem
Almost every Etsy shop is photographed at home, and almost every editing service treats that as a defect to erase. It is not.
Kitchen-table light
A window on one side, a warm bulb on the other, and a colour cast that makes silver look gold. It is the single most common problem we are sent, and it is also the one that most damages trust when the parcel arrives.
Over-editing destroys the product
The texture, the tool marks and the slight irregularity are the evidence that a person made this. Smooth them away in the name of a clean product shot and the listing quietly becomes less convincing.
Ten slots, most of them empty
Etsy gives you ten image slots and rewards using them. A half-populated gallery loses to a complete one from a competitor with the same product, before either photograph is judged on quality.
Props help, clutter does not
The linen and the wooden board belong in the shot. The power lead, the radiator and the corner of the laundry basket do not. Telling those apart is a judgement call, not a background removal.
What We Deliver for Etsy
The standard output for an Etsy order, matched to how the platform actually crops and displays your images.
- Recommended size
- 2000 px on the shortest side, the size Etsy recommends
- Composition
- Shot and cropped wide, because thumbnails crop to landscape
- Background
- Lifestyle or plain — context is expected here, not stripped out
- Listing set
- All ten slots filled where you have the angles for it
- File format
- JPG for photography, PNG where a transparent cut-out is needed
- Turnaround
- 24 hours standard, same day for single listings before the cut-off
Etsy recommends at least 2000px on the shortest side. Shoot wider than you need — thumbnails crop to landscape, so anything tight to the edges loses its composition in search.
What We Edit for an Etsy Shop
Five jobs cover most handmade listings. Each links to the service page explaining how the technique itself is performed.
Whatever Else Was on the Table
Handmade work is photographed where there is space, which means the frame usually contains something that is not for sale — the edge of a laptop, a phone, the corner of a cutting mat. Removing it means rebuilding the surface it was covering rather than smudging over it, and the piece is squared and paired up in the same pass.
- Props and intrusions removed from the frame
- Surface behind them rebuilt, not blurred
- Piece squared to the surface
- Cast from the room neutralised
How this is done: Photo Enhancement
Try it on 3 imagesFine Edges Without a Halo
Wool, lace, fibre, fringing and anything woven cannot be cut with a path. We mask them per pixel so the individual strands survive and the fringe is decontaminated of colour picked up from the old background — no white outline, no chewed edge where the detail was.
- Strand-level extraction on fibre and lace
- Per-pixel transparency, not a hard cut
- No halo on white, black or a scene
- Transparent PNG plus the layered file
How this is done: Image Masking
Try it on 3 images
Clutter Out, Context In
The considered part of the styling stays. The plug socket, the cable, the stray thread on the backdrop and the crease in the fabric go. This is the judgement most automated tools cannot make, because it needs someone to know which objects are the styling and which are the room.
- Distractions removed, props kept
- Dust, lint and stray threads cleaned
- Backdrop creases evened out
- Nothing about the product itself altered
How this is done: Photo Enhancement
Try it on 3 imagesOne Earring, Listed as a Pair
Most sellers photograph one of a pair, because photographing two so they match is genuinely hard and the second one is identical anyway. The single shot is mirrored into a pair that hangs correctly, with the highlight and shadow rebuilt on the mirrored side so it reads as two pieces photographed together rather than a copy and paste.
- One shot mirrored into a matched pair
- Highlight and shadow rebuilt on the mirror
- Spacing and angle set as they would hang
- Works for earrings, cufflinks and studs
How this is done: Cropping & Resizing
Try it on 3 images
Mixed Metals and Set Stones
A piece combining polished silver with several different stones is two problems at once: the metal wants brightening and every stone wants something else, and one adjustment across the whole frame gets both wrong. Each is worked separately, so the silver keeps its polish and the stones keep the colours they actually are.
- Metal and stones corrected separately
- Polish kept without blowing the highlight
- Each stone held to its true colour
- Setting edges left crisp at zoom
How this is done: Image Masking
Try it on 3 imagesThe Services an Etsy Shop Bundles
Most handmade listings need these four rather than a full catalogue pipeline. Each page carries its own rate.
How an Etsy Order Runs
Designed to work for one listing as easily as for a whole shop refresh.
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01
Send the shots and describe the piece
Tell us the actual material and colour — "the glaze is a warm cream, not yellow". That sentence is worth more than any brief, because the photograph is exactly what got it wrong.
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02
We agree how far to take it
For handmade work the useful question is where to stop. We confirm what counts as a flaw to remove and what counts as the character of the piece before touching anything.
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03
Hand-edited, texture protected
Edited in Photoshop by a person, with a second editor checking the file. Nothing is smoothed, generated or invented, because that is precisely what makes a handmade listing stop looking handmade.
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04
Delivered ready for the listing slots
Back at 2000px on the shortest side, cropped to survive Etsy’s landscape thumbnail, with as many of the ten slots filled as your angles allow. Revisions are unlimited.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will editing make my handmade products look mass-produced?
Not if it is done properly, and this is the thing we are most careful about. Texture, tool marks and slight irregularity are the evidence a person made the piece, so they stay. What comes out is the room: the colour cast, the plug socket, the crease in the backdrop. If you would rather we left something specific alone, say so and we will.
What size should Etsy listing photos be?
At least 2000 pixels on the shortest side, which is what Etsy recommends. Just as important is composing wide: Etsy crops thumbnails to landscape, so a shot framed tight to the edges loses its composition in search results, where buyers actually first see it.
Should my Etsy photos have a white background?
Usually not for every image. A plain first image helps the product read in search, but Etsy buyers respond to context — the piece in a hand, on a table, in a room — far more than marketplace buyers do. The pattern that works is one clean shot to lead, then styled and in-use shots to fill the remaining slots.
Can you edit photographs taken on a phone?
Yes, and most of what we receive from Etsy sellers is exactly that. A modern phone has more than enough resolution; the problems are lighting and colour, and both are fixable in the edit. What cannot be recovered is severe blur or a shot where the product is out of focus, and we will tell you that rather than take the money.
Do you charge more for one listing than for a bulk order?
The per-image rate is the same — there is no small-order surcharge and no minimum. Discounts run the other way: orders above ten images qualify for reduced pricing and above one hundred for up to fifty percent off. A single listing is a perfectly normal order here.
Can you fill all ten Etsy image slots from what I have?
Often, yes. From a decent set of source shots we can produce the crops, close-up detail shots and scale references that fill the remaining slots without a reshoot. Where you genuinely lack an angle we will say so rather than fabricate one, because an invented view is a return waiting to happen.
How long does it take?
Standard turnaround is 24 hours, and single listings sent before the cut-off usually come back the same working day. That matters here more than in catalogue work, because a handmade piece is often one of one and the listing wants to go up while it exists.
How do I try it without paying?
Send three images through the free trial with a note about the material and its true colour. No card, no account, no follow-up call. You keep the edited files whether or not you order anything after that.
Industries We Also Edit For
Different way of selling, different brief. Same price list and the same production floor.
Send Three Listings and See the Difference
Pick the three shot in the worst light. Those are the ones where the edit earns its money.