Tips for Product Photography Lighting

It’s important that you have basic knowledge of product photography lighting to understand how light works and have fundamental knowledge principles of light

Product photography is an essential part of both online and offline advertising for successful catalogues, brochures, magazine ads, billboards, online ads and company websites, specifically when selling products direct to consumer and today consumers are bombarded with visuals, be it photos or videos because photos are a key part of a consumer’s decision-making process, ultimately determining conversion and retention rates.

The quality of product photography reflects your brand image, creating the infamous first impression. An understanding of light is the first skill that will translate to all areas of photography, whether you’re creating an advertising image for a client, photographing a high-end fashion campaign or simply capturing your treasured family memories, and if you decide to use product image editing services the great lighting can be realized and make all the difference between making a sale and missing an opportunity. 

It’s important that you understand how light works and have fundamental knowledge principles of light so that you can benefit from and use it when you’re creating your images. Let’s take a few tips for basic knowledge of product photography lighting:

1. Prep!

If something happens to it, it would be relieving to know that you have a backup. Prep the item beforehand and make your product levitate with a thin piece of string and get rid of the string during this stage. product photography is a great time for you to unleash your creativity.

2. Hard or soft light

Understanding the difference between hard and soft light and knowing how to create each is important because, as I mentioned, size plays a big part in the hardness or softness of a light and depending on whether you’re using a large light source or a small light source, you’ll get very different results.

3. Quality of light

When we talk about light quality, we don’t necessarily mean good or bad light, but rather the effect of the light on the subject. The feel of the light – how hard or soft it is. Whenever we consider the hardness of light, we’re looking at the shadows. More specifically, contrast and the transition from highlights to neutral light to shadows.

4. Play Some Shadows

The aperture of the camera plays a vital role in how much exposure your product photograph gets in general. Don’t forget about white balance and ISO filters, these play such a crucial role in the exposure of your photograph. More importantly, don’t be afraid of shadows. In a perfect environment, you would want to eliminate them altogether, but it can also be a creative way to “frame” your photo.

Read also: Product Photography at Home for Beginners

5. Continuous vs Strobe Lighting

continuous lights is that what you see is what you get – when metering in the middle with your camera, your photo should closely approximate what you see with your eyes based on how you have the “volume” of the lights set (if they have a dimmer). Adjustments can then be made to shutter speed or ISO to change the exposure/look of the lit product, as there isn’t much flexibility in the amount of light coming from most continuous lights.

While, strobe lights or “flashes” are Xenon vapor tubes with high-voltage capacitors that are capable of releasing instantaneous bursts of light many tens of thousands of times more powerful than continuous lights, but over only a fraction of a second. Because of the limited volume of continuous lights, you can’t as easily freeze action with them as you can with strobes.

7. The position of the light

The position and distance of your light source — whether the light is in front, to the side, behind, low down or up above — allows us to control the direction of the shadows and will also influence the amount of texture you reveal and the level of contrast. By using professional photo editing services  it would be easier as the closer the light, the bigger it is and therefore the softer the light. Meanwhile, the further away it is, the light will become smaller and also harder.

Want a better way to do this? Get your photos touched up by a professional editor. Dropicts provide product image editing services to solve your problem. Our team is professional photo editors and can do any photoshop services for you. So, what are you waiting for? Send us your raw images because you will get 5 free images to be edited!

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We are very happy be able to help you enhance your product image for your e-commerce site. We would like to see your e-commerce store looks beautiful and professional. For more product image optimization be sure to follow us and stay tuned to our latest article.