Musical instruments are one of the hardest categories to photograph well and one of the most punishing when you get it wrong. A guitar is long, glossy, and covered in chrome that mirrors your entire room. A keyboard is wide and low. A trumpet is essentially a curved mirror. And because most instrument buyers are spending several hundred to several thousand pounds on a used item they cannot touch, they scrutinise your photos harder than shoppers in almost any other category.
This guide covers how to shoot instruments so buyers can actually judge condition, plus the current image specs for the marketplaces instrument sellers actually use.
Why instrument photos are judged differently
In most e-commerce categories, the photo sells an idea: this is what the product looks like new. In instruments, especially used and vintage gear, the photo does a different job. It is evidence. Buyers are looking for fret wear, buckle rash, finish checking, corroded hardware, dents in a bell, chipped keys, and whether the serial number matches the description.
That changes your priorities. A beautiful hero shot still matters for the click, but the gallery behind it has to be forensic. Sellers who hide wear get returns, disputes, and negative feedback. Sellers who photograph wear clearly and describe it honestly often sell faster, because the buyer stops worrying about what is not being shown.
Marketplace image specs for instrument sellers
Reverb is the specialist marketplace, but most sellers list across several channels at once. The requirements differ enough that a single export will not satisfy all of them.
| Channel | Minimum size | Recommended | Shape | Photos per listing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reverb | 620 x 620 px | 1600 x 1600 px | Square | Up to 25 |
| eBay | 500 px longest side | 1600 px longest side | Any, square preferred | 12 free, more in some categories |
| Amazon | 1000 px longest side | 1600 px+ for zoom | Square main image | Up to 9 (7 usually shown) |
| Shopify (own store) | No hard minimum | 2048 x 2048 px | Consistent ratio | Unlimited in practice |
| Shopee / Lazada | 500 x 500 px | 1000 x 1000 px | Square, 1:1 | Up to 9 |
| Carousell | None enforced | 1080 x 1080 px | Square | Up to 10 |
Reverb's rules are stricter than most sellers realise
Reverb requires original photography of the actual item in its current condition. Stock photos are permitted only for authorised dealers. Screenshots are not allowed. Neither are images with added text, borders, manufacturer logos, or other distracting alterations, which rules out the badge-and-arrow collage style that works on Shopee and Lazada. Reverb also expects unboxed photos of the actual unit, and any blemish, wear, or damage must be both photographed and described.
The practical consequence: your Reverb gallery and your Southeast Asian marketplace gallery cannot be the same set of files. Shoot one clean master set, then produce channel-specific versions from it. Batch tools such as PixelPrep handle the resizing and square-canvas padding step so a 3:2 camera file becomes a compliant 1600 x 1600 square without you cropping the headstock off.
Killing reflections on gloss and chrome
A polyurethane guitar body, a lacquered saxophone, and a chrome cymbal all have the same problem: they reflect whatever is in front of them, including you, your camera, and the window.
Use large, soft, indirect light. A softbox or diffused window light spread across a big area produces a broad, gentle highlight that reads as shine. A bare bulb or on-camera flash produces a small, blinding hot spot that hides the finish underneath. If you only have a window, shoot on an overcast day or hang a white sheet over the glass.
Control the angle. Reflections obey the angle of incidence. If a light is bouncing straight back into your lens, move the light, move the instrument, or move yourself by a few degrees. Small changes often eliminate a highlight completely.
Consider a circular polarising filter. A CPL cuts specular reflections on non-metallic surfaces such as lacquered wood and gloss finishes, and it will tame a fingerboard glare that no amount of repositioning fixes. Rotate it while watching the finish, not the background.
Watch what is behind you. On chrome hardware you will see the room. Wear dark clothing, shoot from behind a black card with a hole cut for the lens if you are photographing cymbals or brass, and check the tuners and bridge at full zoom before you call the shot done.
Fill the shadows. A small piece of white card near the bridge or under the neck bounces light back into areas that go muddy, which is where buyers look for fret wear.
The shot list buyers actually want
Work from a fixed list so nothing gets missed at packing time. For a guitar or bass, a complete gallery looks like this:
- Full front, instrument straight and centred, on a clean background
- Full back, showing buckle rash and any belly cut wear
- Headstock front, logo and any serial or model markings legible
- Headstock back, tuners and any repairs to the neck joint
- Fretboard along its length at a low angle, showing fret wear and divots
- Bridge, saddles and pickups close up
- Control cavity or electronics if opened, for modified instruments
- Serial number, sharp and readable
- Every blemish, one photo each, with something for scale
- Case, keys, candy, manuals and accessories laid out
For keyboards and digital pianos, add a straight-on shot of the full keybox, an angled shot showing key colour consistency, a close-up of the control panel with the display powered on, and a photo of the rear connector panel. For brass and woodwind, add the bell interior, the pads or valves, the lacquer condition around contact points, and the case interior. For amplifiers and pedals, photograph the rear panel, the tube or speaker where visible, and the unit powered on.
Photograph flaws deliberately, not accidentally
A blemish shot needs three things: the flaw in sharp focus, enough surrounding area that the buyer knows where it is on the instrument, and honest lighting. Raking light across a surface exaggerates scratches, and flat frontal light hides them. Shoot the flaw the way it looks in normal room light, then say in the description what it is. Do not retouch a scratch out and do not brighten it into invisibility, because both count as misrepresenting condition.
Handling long, awkward shapes
Guitars, cellos, and keyboards do not fit a square frame comfortably. Three approaches work:
Shoot vertically, pad to square. Photograph the instrument upright against a plain wall, then place that portrait file onto a square white canvas. Nothing gets cropped and the listing thumbnail stays consistent with the rest of your catalogue.
Shoot flat from above. Lay the instrument on a plain sheet, stand on a step ladder, and shoot straight down. This gives even geometry and no perspective stretch, but you must keep the camera parallel to the floor or the body will look lopsided.
Use a longer lens from further back. Wide lenses close up make headstocks look enormous and bodies look small. Step back and zoom in to around 50mm to 85mm equivalent for natural proportions.
Whichever you choose, keep the instrument straight. A tilted guitar in a square frame reads as amateur and makes it harder for buyers to compare against other listings.
File preparation before upload
Shoot at your camera's full resolution, keep the originals, and export listing copies. Aim for 1600 x 1600 px square JPEGs at around 200KB to 400KB each, in sRGB. That size satisfies Reverb, eBay, and Amazon zoom in one file, and downsizes cleanly to 1000 x 1000 px for Shopee and Lazada. Avoid uploading 8MB straight-from-camera files: marketplaces recompress them anyway, and large galleries load slowly on mobile, which is where most browsing happens.
Pre-listing checklist
- Instrument cleaned, strings wiped, dust off the finish and inside the case
- Background plain and uncluttered, same background across the whole gallery
- No reflection of you, your phone, or the window in any chrome or gloss surface
- Serial number photographed and legible at full zoom
- Every blemish mentioned in the description has a matching photo
- Accessories, case and case candy shown in at least one shot
- Instrument straight, not tilted, in all full-body shots
- Exported as square sRGB JPEGs, 1600 x 1600 px, under 500KB
- No added text, borders or logos on files destined for Reverb, eBay or Amazon
- Original high-resolution files archived before you post
Instrument buyers are patient and detail-obsessed. Give them twenty honest photographs instead of five flattering ones and you will spend far less time answering questions, and far less time processing returns.