The Ultimate Guide To Professional Product Photography For E-Commerce

Do you own a dropshipping/e-commerce site? Have you tried placing an order from your own store yet? It's actually a fantastic idea for many reasons. The thing is, it's a main problem of e-commerce that customers can't touch, taste, hear, or smell the products they buy. Reviews aren't always gonna do it! Many customers will not purchase a product that they cannot see. The answer is to make product pictures available online. By trying and doing the photography yourself, you can also create some promotional and instructive contents for your consumers. 

However, stock photography and professional photography products aren't the same. You need to engage and appeal to your customers with these contents. For that, you need high-quality, eye-catching product photography. Professional product pictures are well known for driving massive sales. Many e-commerce business owners, that's why hire professional photographers. But what if you're just getting started with dropshipping and have a limited budget? In that case, you can't afford to spend thousands of dollar on just product photography. 

Don't worry. You don't need to spend thousand dollars (or even a hundred!). You can just do it yourself. This blog post with helping you with some unique product photography ideas to make your online shop more visually appealing! 

What Is Product Photography?

Product photography uses some methods to present goods appealingly and persuade prospective customers to buy them.

Product photography is equally important for online and offline advertising, including catalogues, brochures, magazine advertisements, billboards, internet advertisements, and business websites, especially when selling goods directly to consumers.

Your product pictures should represent who you are as a company and inspire trust in your consumers. Product pictures may be divided into two categories:

01. Minimalist Product Photos 

These are the images that are most likely to appear initially on a product page. They're high-resolution, detail-oriented product pictures set against a solid colour backdrop, typically white. We'll mainly discuss minimalist product photos in this blog post. 

02. Active Product Photos 

These product pictures display your products in their natural environment. These pictures allow consumers to picture themselves using the product. You can also show your consumers the product's size, fit, and functionality.

Benefits Of High-Quality Product Photography

Product photography is much more than simply displaying your customers what you have to offer. The following are some of the advantages of investing in high-quality product photography:

• Increasing conversions

• Showing customers the benefits of using a product 

• Increasing your customers' trust and confidence in your brand and company

• Keeping people on your website browsing for longer

• Avoiding returns

Now, let's end the chitchat and start on what you need and what you have to do to create product photographs that will actually convert! Well, before starting, let's get one confusion out of the way, shall we? 

Can I Use Smartphone For Professional Photography Products?

I always recommend using professional tools for professional output. However, there's a lot you can accomplish with only your phone and a little imagination.

The majority of modern phones have excellent photographic capabilities, allowing you to capture your products in all of their splendour. The latest iPhones, Google Pixels, and Samsung Galaxies come with technology that allows for high-quality, detailed photos. They also come with capabilities that help you get the most out of your product, angle, and lighting.

It's all about meticulously setting up the pictures and utilizing the resources you have to highlight your goods for professional product photography.

6 Professional Product Photography Tips By Experts

Your first product photography session may seem challenging to you, especially for those who aren't used to using cameras before. After a few rounds, though, each step will seem more natural, and you won't have to think about it.

Finding your own way of doing things, optimizing it, and creating a set of rules to guarantee consistency in your pictures is the key. Take a peek at some of our product photography ideas.

1. Know Your Way Around Your Camera

Spend some time studying your camera capabilities and settings. Whether you're shooting with your smartphone or a digital SLR camera, you'll want to know what your gear can do and how to get the most out of it.

Take the time to get familiar with the concepts of exposure, focus, and colour balance. If you're using a smartphone, look for an app that lets you adjust these settings manually to get more consistent results. The automatic settings algorithm will break the consistency. 

The sooner you learn these basics, the speeder your workflow will be. Don't worry; once you find the perfect settings for your environment, clicking photos will be bliss! 

Lens Selection

You'll need at least a standard 35mm lens plus a 100mm macro lens for detailed photos if you're using a DSLR camera. Modern smartphone cameras (like iPhone 12 Pro) also comes with multiple lens options. 

Capture Large File 

You won't be able to improve clarity and sharpness if you shoot at a low resolution. While shooting on a smartphone, shoot in the highest megapixel count. Shoot in RAW format with a digital SLR camera and save modified copies as jpegs. 

2. Use A White Backdrop

Shooting against a white background is essential for a nice setup. The white background will bounce light back onto your goods, preventing colour spillage. It will also guarantee that the white balance calibration on your camera is correct, resulting in realistic colours.

You can utilize a shooting table and tabletop to photograph smaller items. Purchase a shooting table online or build your own using an old table, scrap wood, a hammer and nails, spring clamps, and the sweep. I like white wrapping paper for my sweep because it is reflective, but you may use whatever you have available.

It's a bit more complicated with bigger items. Purchasing a sweep with a stand can make your life much simpler if you plan on shooting often. If it's a one-time shot, take an old sheet and drape it over anything. I've previously utilized a DVD rack! I've seen people using white posters!

3. Don't Forget Lighting

It doesn't matter whether you're shooting with a DSLR or your iPhone; one thing stays the same. LIGHTING!

Natural light will be your best bet 9 out of 10 times. Look around the home for a bright spot near a window. Taking photographs in the middle of the day, when the sun is straight above, yields the most outstanding images.

Is it a rainy day? Place a light on either side of your product and examine it.

• Is it well lit?

• Do you see any shadows?

• Do you see any reflections?

Experiment, play and learn. To minimize reflections and shift shadows, adjust the Lighting around. Shades that are sharp and solid are disturbing. This is referred to as 'harsh light.' If you use lamps, you're probably gonna see this problem. Place a white plastic bag over the lamp. This will give you a more even, 'soft' light and reduce the sharp, harsh shadows.

Turn Off Your Flash 

When appropriately utilized, on-camera flash may provide excellent results in some kinds of photography. If you're new to photography, though, it's better to switch off the on-camera flash and utilize other light sources that are easier to manage.

4. Use A Tripod

Tripods may seem to be geeky, pointless piece of photographic equipment. But they make a significant difference in the clarity and quality of your product photographs. They're also not always costly or difficult to use!

Tripods are basically stands that hold your camera steady while you have it in your unsteady hand. When you use a tripod, you can reduce blur, which is crucial if you want your product photos to appear professional and high-quality.

There are numerous tripods on the market in various price ranges for every kind of camera out there, whether you're using a fancy DSLR or an iPhone. Get one for your camera from Amazon. It's worth it! 

5. Take A Photo & Assess 

So, you've your full setup ready by now. Now is the time to actually place your product and click photos. Take some time and click pictures from multiple angles. Click as much as you want; you can always delete them later. 

This is where your knowledge and expertise come into play—what works, what doesn't, and what you can do to improve things.

Use Macro 

The 'close up' option, often known as a macro, is found on most cameras. Look for the logo that resembles a Tulip. It's a fantastic mode for jewellery and other intricate items. It gives the viewer a totally new viewpoint. 

Display Variations

When your customer likes something, he/she will need to see all the variations and angles. Show everything. Show it in all five colours if your t-shirts come in five distinct colours. Each product category should have its own image. Also, shoot from different angles to show all of it! 

6. Editing Is The Key

Taking a picture is just the first step. The importance of touch-ups and editing is equal to that of shooting the picture. To begin, open Photoshop or Lightroom and import your photos. If none of these options is accessible, try Pixlr Editor, a free online version of Photoshop.

Examine the image's colours in contrast to the actual goods. Is it the same thing? Are the reds in the pictures more orange, or are the blues more green in real life? Take caution and don't overdo it. All you need are a few minor tweaks.

Remember that you want your product pictures to be accurate, not to make the product seem to be something it isn't! As you grow, advance, take a photo editing class (or just Google!) and learn photo manipulation and other product photo editing tricks. Don't be afraid to be creative. 

Wrapping Up

There you've it. A good product photo will bring thousands of visitors to your website (just like a picture is equivalent to a thousand words!). It's always worth investing a bit of additional time and money to take excellent images of your product if you care about it. After more than five years in the industry, I can assure you that amazing pictures usually result in greater sales.

Originally posted in: https://dropshipusa.io/blogs/news/ultimate-guide-to-professional-product-photography-for-e-commerce