Product photos have a very important role for a business. Not infrequently product images can be a determinant for online shoppers to buy your goods or not. To increase the conversion of your online store purchases, it’s a good idea to know how to optimize your product photography.
Product photography or ecommerce photography is not as scary as you think. There are many product photographer services that you can use to take the best product photos for you.
However, if you don’t have the money to hire a professional photographer, you can still take a great product photo yourself. Here are some product photography tips that you can use as a guide.
What are the Types of Product Photos?
Like any other form of photography, product photography has its own complexities, especially in the types of product photos you can take.
Each type of product photo has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, to to optimize your product photography better you need to decide what kind of product photos you want to take.
The following are types of product photos for your guidance.
1. Individual Shots
Individual shots are one of the most common forms of product photography.
As the name implies, in this type of product photo you will only include one product in the image. Generally, this type of product photo will use a white or light background.
Also Read: Tips To Great and Affordable Product Photography
2. Group Shots
As the name implies, group shot is a type of product photo that displays various variants of one product in one image.
This type of product photo will certainly be more effective than individual shots if your product has many variants.
In addition, group photos can also be more easily shared on social media.
3. Lifestyle Shots
Lifestyle itself is a branch of photography. This branch of photography tries to capture the everyday life around us.
In the context of product photography, lifestyle photo is a type of product photography that displays your products in everyday life.
For example, you sell a dining table. Instead of just taking pictures of the table with a plain background, you can take pictures of the atmosphere of a family dinner using your table.
Lifestyle photos not only make people more interested in your product photos but can also help them see if the product fits their activity when they buy it later.
Also Read: Convincing Value Shoppers for Shopping Online
4. Scale Shots
One of the obstacles faced by online shoppers when shopping in ecommerce website is that they cannot measure the size of an item correctly.
Not infrequently people feel disappointed because they ordered a size that was too big or too small. To help your customers, you can use a type of product photo called scale shots.
As the name suggests, this type of photo displays the scale of your product. This type of photo may look similar to a lifestyle photo where you place this product in the context of everyday life.
However, in scale shots, size becomes the focus of the image. You can place relevant objects around your products to give your customers an idea of how big your product is.
5. Detailed Shots
If your product is full of small details, such as an engraving on a ring, then this type of product photo will be perfect for you.
This type of product photo initially looks similar to individual shots. The difference is, you will focus more on capturing all the small details of your product.
Usually, you’ll need lighting tools and special camera lenses, such as macro lenses, to capture details that the built-in lens might miss.
6. Packaging Shots
Packaging is one thing that is often overlooked by new businessmen.
In fact, visuals are the first element that customers will notice. By having memorable packaging, be it premium, cute, etc., you can quickly attract the attention of customers from competing products.
To be more effective, you can display your product packaging in product photos. This way, customers will be able to quickly assess whether they like the look of your product or not before digging into your product.
How to Optimize Your Product Photography Correctly?
Every successful e-commerce business has one thing in common; they have great product photos.
Their product photos not only make their products look attractive but sometimes also help their customers to understand their products well.
You can also do the same. It is highly recommended that you hire a professional photographer to get the best results.
However, if you don’t have the money needed, you can still take good product pictures. Here are some steps to take a good product photo.
1. Prepare Your Product
Prepare your product by clean them and set them
Preparation is matter. Make sure you are prepare your product first. For example, you can clean them then set it to right position as you thought. If you sell a secondhand product, do not ever hide the imperfection. If you can’t fix it, leave it naturally and shoot them naturally to get customer understand about your product condition. Shooting accurately will give the customer satisfied and the result you get a good reputation as seller.
Also Read: 7 Perfect Product Photography Lighting Setups
2. Set up Your Studio
Positioning your tripod and camera in front of your product directly
Choose a large room to accommodate your need as a studio. You don’t want something block your product while your shoot. In some conditions, you may able to use some natural light from your window. Don’t forget to use white background to get maximal result. Use a seamless backdrop that can’t create any shadow.
Also Read: 5 Guide to Awesome DIY Product Photography Table
3. Pick Your Lens
Lens between 24-70mm giving a good result if used in small studio area.
Choosing a camera lens is crucial because you didn’t want to get any distort. You may set to use macro or wide angle in this conditions. A multipurpose lens (versatile lens) will be useful. The lens range between 50-70mm give you result in minimal distortion. Actually, there is a good lens that you can used which is prime lens. The prime lens has a range between 24-70mm and fit to use in smaller area because the frame ability in zoom in and out. Keep in mind that your aperture must above f8 and the ideal aperture is at f16.
Read also: Editing Jewelry Product Photos with Perfectly
4. Place your Tripod and Camera in the Right Position
Positioning your tripod and camera in front of your product directly
It quite important to use a tripod in this certain condition. Tripod will make your camera persistent from shoot to another shoot. Tripod also keeps camera from shake and blur. Your tripod must in front your product straightly.
5. Don’t Change The Style
Do not add something to your product may resulted dishonesty
In some condition, you may satisfied with this style, but not with the customer. What the customer want is seeing the product perfectly. The customer may didn’t like the way you treat the product. Changing your product may affecting on distraction and misleading.
6. Shoot in Different Angle
Try to take your photo from different angle to give clear image
Showing product in different angle giving a benefit for you and grab the customer attention. Shoot your product in any angle as possible. Use zoom in and out, front and back, and the detail though. Shoot your specific character like scratch or bump. The more you provide image in different angle, the more confident a customer feel to make a decision.
7. Optimize it in Post Production
For example, you can use dropicts to optimize your image
After capturing an image, sometime you should optimize it in post production. There are many photo editing apps that can help with your post-production process. Starting from simple background removal applications that you can get for free on the internet to super complete applications like Photoshop.
You can remove any mark that you don’t in your image. Don’t forget to use highlight if you shoot a big product or reflective product. Soften them and add a shadow if necessary. Read our guide to optimize your image in post production
However, make sure you don’t overdo it when you do photo editing. You really have to make your product look as attractive as possible. However, if you add too many effects or change the image too much, you will only make customers feel uncomfortable with your product photos.
8. Repeat The Process Until You Find The Right One
You can use this DIY technique to produce other image with same step. All you need is knowing your product, your equipment, and your technique both in capturing or post production.
Also Read: 11 Best Product Photography Ideas To Sell More
That’s the explanation about how to optimize your product photography. You must know the ins and outs of your product and have an idea of how you want people to see your product in order to optimize the images of your products properly. With tools and guides, you can take good pictures of your own products.
Meantime in the post production, you can use our service as a product image editing services to get sensational result. Try to combine it all and you may the best result as you want.