If you are selling online (or even offline) it is vital that you spend some time on your product photos and make sure that they stand out from the crowd.
What is product photography?
Product photography is a form of commercial photography that can be used to sell products, but more often than not it is used to promote the image of the company that produces the products.
The quality of your product photos has a direct effect on the perceived value of your product and your brand, influencing both sales and customer retention.
This tutorial is a brief overview of some quick and easy tricks that will help you take professional quality product photos on a limited budget.
Advantages of using product photography on websites
- Product photos give customers a better understanding of what the item will look like when it arrives at their doorstep.
- High-quality photos can differentiate and improve the perceived value of your product.
- Photography helps establish brand identity and trustworthiness
- Your site will be memorable to customers
- You’ll attract more repeat customers
How to enhance your product photography for your website?
Product photography is a tricky business. It takes more than just a nice camera and a steady hand to produce great images.
You need to be prepared for everything from lighting issues to product defects.
These tips will help you enhance your photos so they stand out from the competition:
Forget the flash
The use of flash in product photography can overexpose and alter the true colors of your products. You can make use of natural light, indirect artificial light such as a desk lamp or even a candle, but nothing too bright as it could reflect off shiny surfaces and cause glares.
Prepare your product and space
If you’re photographing electronics, take a few minutes to dust them and make sure there are no smudges or fingerprints. If you’re selling clothes, iron them and make sure they’re wrinkle-free. Make sure your space is clean as well, as clutter in the background will detract from the product. You want the focus to be on what you’re selling.
Make sure your photos are the right size
Your eCommerce platform likely has guidelines for photo dimensions and sizes so that they fit correctly on each page.
If you don’t follow these guidelines, the photo might look stretched or distorted, which could turn away shoppers. Even if it’s just a hair out of place, a photo that looks off can make shoppers think that something’s wrong with it.
The bigger the file size, the longer it takes the customer to download it. There is no point in having a high-quality product photo if your website is too slow to load.
A good way to reduce file size is to compress them. By reducing the number of colors in an image, you can decrease its file size and make it suitable for web use.
Take photos that convey the scale
People want to see what they’re buying! Take several close-up shots of all angles of your product as well as at least one shot of what the item looks like in someone’s hand or next to other objects to show its size.
Shoot at an angle
Try to avoid taking straight-on shots of your products. Straight on photos tend to look too flat and don’t show much detail. Shifting your camera slightly to the side so that more light hits the product will add depth and make it look more interesting.
Use a good background.
The background of your photo needs to be simple and not distracting.
White is the standard in e-commerce photography because it is simple and neutral but still allows the product to stand out from the background.
For others, try a simple background that brings out the color of the item without taking away from it.
Start with high-res images
If you have low-resolution images, you’ll be limited in what you can do to enhance them. If you take the photo yourself, start by taking pictures at the highest resolution possible. If you need to use stock photos or pull images from the web, make sure they’re high-quality and have a large file size.
Photo editing software
There are many free photo editing tools available online that can be used to enhance your images by adjusting brightness, sharpening details, and removing glares.
White Balance
White balance is the process of eliminating undesirable color casts so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. The proper white balance has the ability to improve contrast and provide accurate colors.
Use multiple images for each product listing
The main image (the one that shows up first when someone searches for something), additional views from different angles or perspectives, and a zoomed-in detail shot if there’s something interesting about it like stitching or buttons that should really be highlighted.
Show products from multiple angles and include closeups. Customers want to see all the details of your products, and you can’t succeed if they have to squint or click around to do it. Minimum requirements: a photo that shows the entire item, plus one or two close-ups of features they’ll want to see.
Use the right kind of props and models
If you’re selling clothing, for example, you’ll probably want a model wearing it so that customers can get a sense of how it fits. But if you’re selling a table lamp, you don’t need a model — you want the customer focused on the lamp itself.
When you’re just starting out, getting your product images shot can be an intimidating prospect, because good e-commerce photography can be expensive. But there are hundreds of product photography tools to help you get the job done yourself.
At first glance, this may seem like a really difficult thing to do, but in reality, with a little bit of work, you can create some stunning photos of your products.