Since I do the photographic work for my seller friend, I have a particular interest in the rendition of colours on the net. The problem is extremely difficult to overcome since one half of the problem is with the seller and the other half with the buyer.
A seller can take a good photo - but the lighting source will affect the colour. If using natural (sun) light, then the time of day will affect the colour of the light. As well as this, there are some materials whose apparent colouring changes with the angle of view.
But even assuming a seller can get a top notch photo up on their listing, what the buyer sees may be HUGELY different. Unless you view the same picture on two properly calibrated monitors, (such as you would find in production areas of TV stations) the chances of having two monitors display the same colours is very low.
Factors that affect colour include:
- the type of display technology - eg: CRT, LCD, Plasma, OLED
- the variants of that technology - eg: phosphors for CRT monitors; PVA, MVA, IPS, etc for LCD monitors
- the ambient lighting conditions
- the 'personal preference' settings and adjustments of the buyer
On this last point, I have seen people happily watching TV with the 'colour' setting so high, people's faces look like they are suffering from 3rd degree sunburn. If they adjust their monitors to similar settings, they are never going to get a true representation of the colour of an item on their monitor.
.... and trying to tell some people that, is a very dangerous game in the world of eBay!!
As such, all a seller can do is prepare a decent photograph, include a 'colour disclaimer' and cross their fingers.
... but this example is priceless.
BNWT - thanks for a good laugh!
