Ultimate Guidelines For Product Photography In E-Commerce

Did you know that in 2024, consumers’ attention spans have decreased to just 8 seconds? It’s fascinating how the attractiveness of your product image can significantly impact customers’ purchasing decisions at your store.

E-commerce customers cannot touch and feel your products in person, so photos are the only way they can determine whether the product is right for them.

Since pictures are the baseline of every e-commerce sales strategy, we have taken the time to craft this guide to help you create outstanding pictures to enhance your products online.

Let’s start from the shallow end before getting into the core aspects of this guide: what product photography is and why it is crucial, as well as the essentials and steps to enhancing your e-commerce product photography.

What is Product photography?

Product photography is the art of capturing images of products to present them in the best possible way for display, sales, and marketing purposes. It plays a vital role in attracting customers and boosting sales.s.

High-quality images showcase your products and help you build trust and credibility with potential consumers.

Impact of excellent product photography on e-commerce

Your e-commerce store’s most important KPI is its conversion rate. If sales aren’t being made, your business isn’t thriving.

Aside from increasing your overall sales, product photography is an essential tool for:

• Build a strong, recognizable brand.
• Effective storytelling.
• Visually underlining your values.
• Foster an emotional connection with your audience.

It is crucial to give customers a realistic impression of what to expect when they order your products.

To get into product photography, you will need the right equipment, including a camera, preferably one with a manual setting for easy adjustments and maximum control, a tripod, and a sound lighting system.

Here are the core guidelines for product photography in e-commerce:

1. Understand Your Brand And Your Audience

Before diving into the technical aspects, it’s essential to understand your brand identity and target audience. Your product images should align with your brand’s values and appeal to potential customers. A consistent visual style helps create a cohesive shopping experience.

2. Invest In The Right Equipment

While you don’t need the most expensive gear or equipment, reliable equipment is essential.

Some of these items include:

Camera: A DSLR or a mirrorless camera with manual settings offers versatility.

Lenses: A macro lens for small products and a standard lens for more oversized items.

Tripod: Ensures balance, stability, and consistency in your shots.

Lighting: Softbox or ring lights provide even lighting and reduce shadows, allowing you to take the perfect shot for each product.

Background: Use seamless white paper or lightboxes for a clean, distraction-free background.

A Good Phone: A good phone can be used without a DSLR camera. Get a high-value Android with a clear camera or a decent iPhone for great photographs.

3. Optimize Lighting

Proper Lighting can make or break your product photos. Natural light is ideal for a soft, natural look, but artificial Lighting gives you more control and consistency.

Engage multiple light sources to minimize shadows, enhance the image, and highlight the product’s features.

4. Use A Clean Background

A clean and bright white background is the perfect option for e-commerce photography. It beautifully highlights the product and ensures that the colours are accurately represented.

Make use of lightboxes or sweep backgrounds to achieve this effect. For more lifestyle-oriented shots, use relevant and clean settings that do not distract from the product.

5. Perfect Your Composition

Composition techniques like the rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing can enhance your product images.

Ensure the product is centralized or at the focal point, filling the frame appropriately. Include multiple angles and close-up shots to view the product comprehensively.

6. Highlight Features Of The Product

Detail shots showcase all the unique features of the product. If the product has textures, intricate details, or multiple functions, capture them.

For instance, showing the interior of a handbag or the fabric quality of a dress enables customers to make conscious decisions.

7. Skillful Editing

Editing is essential for polishing your images. Use Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom to adjust brightness, contrast, colour balance, sharpness, and other parameters. Avoid over-editing that may mislead customers, ensuring the product looks as realistic as possible.

8. Image Consistency

Maintain a consistent style across all product images, including Lighting, background, and angles. Consistency helps create a professional and credible brand image, making your e-commerce store visually appealing and easier to navigate.

9. Use High Resolution For Detail

High-resolution images allow customers to zoom in and inspect the details of the given product. This is particularly important for fashion, electronics, and items with sophisticated designs.

10. Scale And Context

Comprising scale references in your photos helps customers understand the product size. For wearable items, models provide context and showcase fit.

For other products, include everyday objects for size comparison. These types of images help demonstrate the product in use and improve relatability.

How To Determine The Type Of Product Photography You Need

Think again if you need a single shot of each product on your list. You must give your customers several compelling shots to rank as the best and make better sales.

This is the most realistic way to get customers to feel your products before they are convinced to click that “order” button.

There are three main types of e-commerce photography, and these include

Types Of E-Commerce Photography

• Single Shots: Featuring individual products in a portrait, with nothing else in view.
• Group Shots: Featuring several products of the same category in a portrait, well arranged and visually appealing.

There are a few ways the group shots can be achieved which are;

Lifestyle shots: Pictures of products in real-life scenarios showcasing the diverse ways they can be used or worn.

Flatlay: This particular shot can be achieved by laying products down and capturing from top to bottom.

Scale shots: This type of shot emphasizes the size or dimension of each product by incorporating recognizable objects or people for comparison.

Action Shots: Capturing products in action can spice up their looks and make them more realistic. For example, capturing a drink being held and poured in a cup rather than on a table gives it an entirely different feel.

Hanging products: Depending on your product, this concept could work perfectly. Your products can be captured hanging down while a hand model holds them. This is an excellent option for a dog leash or a towel.

Packaging Shots: Focuses on capturing the product’s packaging design and outlooks. Customers appreciate well-designed packaging, which adds to the overall brand experience and brings a surge of excitement and anticipation to the minds of your customers.

360 Shots: Photographs taken from different angles, highlighting the in-depth details, features, and unique design elements of a particular product that make them outstanding. These are usually close-up shots.

Ask yourself these questions to determine which type of product photography will best suit your kind of products.

• “What kind of products are you shooting?”
• “What angles will your customers preferably want to see?”
• “What can uniquely differentiate you from your competitors?”

When you understand and provide yourself with the answers to these questions, you’re one step closer to deciding the best kind of shot for your products.

What Should Your Product Background Look Like?

The background of your products determines how great your results will be. Here are some background options for product photography:

White Background

Mostly called the “Amazon standard.” This is likely the expected background, but it is the best. It is clean, scalable, and universal. It is also the best option for your product photography if removing the background of your products might be an option for you afterwards.

Neutral

This background has a clean but aesthetic look. Several brands use neutral tones like beige, creams, and nudes. These colours complement and give off a clean aesthetic feel and are suitable for lifestyle products.

Brand Colors

Another excellent background option for your next product photography is your brand colour. Using your brand colours as the background of your images helps to create brand consistency.

Onset

This is another realistic background option. It is very effective to capture images in their perfect settings, showing how your products will look in your customers’ homes. This applies to products like furniture, electronic sets, and home appliances. Seeing your products positioned in the perfect setting gives them more life and context and showcases the lifestyle customers will have when they purchase them.

So ask yourself:

• What background option will work better for you and your products?
• Do you want a classy white background or an aesthetically inclined neutral?
• An onset or brand-color background?

The answers you get will decide where you will shoot and what background props you do and don’t need.

What Lighting Option Would Work Better For You?

There are two lighting options: Natural (Sunlight) or Artificial (e.g., lamp or lightbox).

Natural Light: This option is budget-friendly. The only light source is sunlight. Products can be shot outdoors or in a well-ventilated room.

This option can be tricky as it can’t be controlled and is liable to change due to variable weather conditions. This could work if you’re working with a smaller range of products (about 1-10) and trying to cut costs.

Artificial Light: This is efficient for a more extensive product range and a popular and practical lighting choice. With artificial lighting, you are in complete control.

You decide and set up your lighting however you want it and wherever you want it, based on the results you want to get.

Where Can You Shoot Images?

 

The following question is on your mind: There are various options where you can shoot your products, and these include:

• In a photo studio.
• Outdoors (On the streets).
• In a home setting
• In your office.
• Create a home studio.

Shooting And Editing Product Pictures

We have covered everything you need to know about shooting your product pictures. Now, let’s talk about the editing part.

Editing takes a lot of time, so we recommend you consider this. You can get a skilled photographer if you have enough of a budget for this. But if you’re just starting and doing everything independently, here are some editing tricks to improve your workflow and reduce the editing you need.

• Use a tripod to stabilize your camera or phone.
• Choose the perfect source of lighting.
• Clean your products and ensure there are no stains on them.
• Use a consistent background.
• Use user-friendly software to edit your images.
• While editing, add shadows to images where necessary.

There is so much to do to enhance your pictures while shooting and reduce your editing. Also, feed your eyes with worthy images to get a proper idea and standard of how your product images should look before and after editing.