How To Nail Product Photos And Get Customers Buying

Creating beautiful product photos is an important goal for any business. If you can nail them, you’ll instantly get people buying, often simply because your photography looks better than your competitors. 

But how do you actually come up with good photos? Take a look at these ideas. 

Begin By Setting Up For A Good Image

You might have the best equipment in the world, but if you don’t set up properly for photos, then your product images will fall short of the mark. 

For many product photos, you’ll want a white background as this is standard in the industry. However, if you’re selling a special kind of service, you may wish to show it in context too. More on this later. 

Make sure that you have a stand for the product – preferably something plain that you can later easily edit out of your photos. 

When it comes to product photos, you need to pay special attention to lighting. The object should be illuminated on all sides evenly without any annoying shadows on the surface which could distract your customers. 

Get A Stand

Whether you’re using a high-powered DSLR or just a smartphone, you’ll need a stand for taking product photos. You need the camera itself to be absolutely still to allow you to create consistent, unblurred product images. Having a stand also allows you to fine tune your setup. You may discover that slight changes in the position of the camera result in much more attractive photos 

Choose The Highest Quality Setting Available

While it might sound obvious, some businesses neglect to choose the highest quality setting possible for their product photos because of storage concerns. This is particularly true of companies wanting to take hundreds or even thousands of individual images. 

If you can, avoid this temptation. Always set your camera quality to the max and don’t compromise. That’s because you may wish to transfer images between different settings, such as your website or in print advertising.

If storage space is an issue, just connect your camera to a storage drive. 500 GB should be more than enough for most purposes. 

Avoid Digital Zooms

Digital zooms look terrible. Images look blurry and the colors washed out. If you need to take a closeup, bring the camera physically nearer to the product. If you are using an optical lens, you can zoom but, again, it may be better to actually just move the camera closer. 

Give Your Lens A Good Clean

When dust particles settle on your camera lens, they change the quality of the image. Smudges, dirt, and dust become noticeable in the final image over time, changing the quality of the photography. A quick wipe with a suitable cloth should be all that you need. 

Switch The Flash Off

If you’ve set up your lighting correctly, you shouldn’t need a flash. Flashes rarely produce the results you want, and they lead to annoying bright patches all over your products. 

Blur The Background

If you’re taking pictures of products or services in context, learn how to blur background objects. This way, you can keep the focus on the product itself, while also hinting to customers how you intend them to use it. 

Avoid Over Editing

Editing photos is a good way to make them look a little more true to life. But it can backfire if you overdo it. Customers may complain that the product that they receive doesn’t actually look like the one in the photos. Cropping is okay. But if you add too many new colors or change the shape in any way, you’re opening yourself up to trouble. 

Buy An Add-On Phone Lens

If you’re taking photographs with your phone, don’t neglect to buy an add-on phone lens. This way, you can change the optical zoom without having to play around with digital settings. 

Use App Settings

If you’re new to photography, then you might also want to download an app that automatically adjusts settings depending on the context. You may find that it allows you to instantly take better product photos, helping to avoid trial and error as you start experimenting. 

So summing up, taking professional product photos is now something that many businesses can do under their own steam. However, it does require a little learning and research. You’ll need to implement best practices to get something of professional quality. If you don’t, your images will look lacklustre and you’ll wonder what it was that you did wrong. Again, it takes a little planning and patience, but once you get the hang of it, it’s something you can use over and over in the future.