Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Some people have a practice of enhancing the color of their geckos in their pictures to make an extra buck. This is a bad practice and it is such a simple thing to do. I wiil show you how easy it is to enhance a picture in photoshop. I promise, i do not do this to any of my photos, they are all unaltered.

Here's what this picture looks like originally.

And here it is now after just a few tweaks in photoshop. This picture would easily increase the value of this gecko by a couple hundred dollars.

Just be careful when you buy geckos online!
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The Hypo Gecko

but I totally agree with you. It's obvious that people are going to be disappointed and complain about a seller when the animal they receive is obviously not as nice as the photo they saw.
Besides scamming a few people, I honestly don't see how it is worth it to ruin your reputation for a few bucks. I mean it's gotta come back and bite you in the @ss.
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4.5 Leopard Geckos
1.0 Marbled Gecko
1.1 Red Eared Sliders
0.2 Siamese Mice

Does Stevie Wonder buy leopard geckos online? Here's a very unflattering pic of the real deal from HQ Reptiles. Matt has some pretty bad pics on his site, so when you open the box you'd better be wearin' the Depends because they look WAY better in person. There are some sites that consistently show grossly exaggerated photos but you usually have tipoffs, like tail color that is not normal (as your example) or the color is off of the animal on the edges. I like the photos that have a commonly recognizable object or plain animal as a comparison. As a last resort, get some references before you buy. This forum is a great tool fpr that. ..... I'm done.

n/p
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)
2.0 bettas

Thanks Dan,

It is sometimes very difficult to get the true colours to show up with a digital camera, and using regular film costs way too much for the number of pictures we take.

Why would anyone enhance their pictures for sale? All you do is create a poor reputation, and in these days of the information super highway, it sure does travel fast.

We try and take all our pictures under natural sunlight, but with the winter fast approaching here in Canada, we have resorted to using lights. Our bulb of preference is the Reveal by GE.

The picture below still doesn’t capture the geckos colour as well as natural sunlight, but this is the best we can do without professional equipment. This picture was taken under two 100w GE Reveal lights, and trust me, her colour is not exaggerated in the least.

Thanks,

Matt.

www.HQReptiles.com

Thanks for the warning, it's amazing what people can do with photoshop, that second pic just looks so...REAL!

lol
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Sarah Stettler aka Starling
Sarah@stargecko.com
StarGecko.Com COMING SOON! Star Quality Leopard Geckos
Specializing in Hypotangerine Tremper Albinos

Real?? *L* That you can actually tell its been altered.. the orange on the tail is blocky and pixelated... Its been colored.... With Photoshop, you use the layer's to alter pictures..not direct coloring... I work in graphic imaging... Paint Shop Pro, Adobe, Bryce 5, Bryce 3D, RAYTrace, etc etc. It is fairly easy but not something that should be done... Not to mention, in Paint Shop Pro, if you zoom in enough on the image you can mostly tell whether its been doctored or not... If you know what to look for.
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Lucien

1.0 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)
2.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzard and 1 het Blizzard)
0.1 Savannah Monitor
13 rats
12 Gerbils
2 Dogs
3 cats
1 Albino Corey (fish)

LOL, i admire your photoshop skills

,

(dont worry, ill delete it from my account later)

M.N

Wow, that's pretty good. I don't know about you, but if I knew how to do that and was trying to sell geckos, I definately wouldn't let everybody know. They might think your photos are enhanced. That's pretty good work though.
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The Hypo Gecko

hehe.. well I dont sell leos.. YET! but I guess editing pictures is pretty easy...not that im gonna do it lol, take a look at these pictures:

heres a picture of the same leo.. but the saturation has been brought up.. I think the only thing that gives it away is the head.. (I didnt feel like finishing it anymore lol)

Heres the same exact picture.. But Sharpend.. see the differance? also need to watch out for that kind of stuff... But beleave me I've seen most off the gecko's available.. and most of them are true pictures.. not tempered with..

P.S. I'm thinking of doing a picture of a Iguana and Leopard Gecko morphed >_> That would be awsome if leos where as big as iguanas

p
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chickabowwow

3.2 leopard geckos (Rosie, Locke, Lisa, Caesar, Tommy)
and 3 eggs a' cookin'

.
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The Hypo Gecko

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>>The Hypo Gecko
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-Ross Payan - www.LeosAnonymous.com

Leos Anonymous

Ball Pythons, Red Striped Leos, W.Hognose and Screaming AFT's

Man, look at this morph I found!

How much would that bring in?
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-Jeff
Webmaster of:
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