Resize images for Etsy listings

Landscape by default

Etsy displays listing images in a landscape frame, and portrait photographs get cropped into it. Working at 2000 × 1600 — a 5:4 landscape — means you decide what the crop keeps rather than discovering it after publishing.

The first image carries the most weight, since it appears in search results and in the shop grid. It is worth cropping that one by hand, using the per-image adjustment, even when the rest of the batch takes the shared setting.

A coherent shop grid

Handmade shops often accumulate photographs taken across months, in different light, at different distances. Standardising the ratio is the fastest way to make that collection look considered. Standardising the crop position helps too: a consistent focal point across a batch produces a grid where products sit in the same place in every frame.

File size and detail

Etsy resizes uploads for display but keeps enough resolution for its zoom view, so texture-heavy work — textiles, ceramics, prints — benefits from uploading at the full 2000 pixel width at quality 85 or higher. This is one case where compressing hard is the wrong instinct: the detail is the product.

Filling all the image slots

Etsy allows ten images per listing and most shops use three. The remaining slots are where scale references, detail shots, packaging and the item in use go — all of which answer the questions that otherwise become messages, or an abandoned basket.

Processing those together with the hero image keeps the whole set at one ratio and one resolution, so the gallery reads as a deliberate sequence rather than an accumulation. A numbered rename pattern is the simplest way to guarantee they upload in the order you intended.