Make your product look great
Taking good product photographs can make the difference between selling a product online or not. If you are serious about your shop you need to make your products look great.
We get given all sorts of images to try to fit into a shop products. Some are stunning and others can be more than a little challenging to use.
Square images are normally required for shop products
The two most common shops we deal with are WooCommerce for WordPress and Shopify. Both are great Ecommerce solutions and both require a square product image to make the most of the product display space. Most cameras only take landscape or portrait images, so the images need to be cropped to get a square image.
Consitency
To make the shop page really sing you need to think how the main product image will be framed. In the case of the pounamu earrings below they are all angled, and taken under the same lighting conditions with the same background.
These children’s shoes from Instep Children’s Footwear are also taken under controlled conditions with all the shoes facing the same way.
Single product image or image gallery
Whether you use a single product image or have an image gallery totally depends on the product. If its a product that is worn like a TShirt or a piece of jewellery then having a photo of the item and a photo of the item on someone can be really helpful for visitors to imagine how it might look when worn. Sometimes items need to have front and back images or views from the top or the bottom so visitors can really get an idea of all the product features.
The main product image for these pounamu earrings is framed on and angle against a white background. However, the earrings really come to life when they are worn and with the light shining through them. The product gallery really supports the main product image and gives an idea of the size and how translucent the earrings really are.
The images above are from www.timoti.nz, a local Nelson carver.
Shopify Blog
Shopify have a great blog with lots of good information about online shops in general. Here are some of their articles on photographing products.
Lighting
Natural lighting can either be your best friend or worst enemy in a product photography shoot. Nail it, and the results will speak for themselves. Get it wrong, and no amount of editing can save a photo from poor lighting.
A 6-Step Guide to Natural Lighting for DIY Product Photography by Shopify
Cropping consistently
Shopify have another great article about photographing shoes which can apply to other products as well. Its a great reas.
Don’t crop inconsistently.
Inconsistent cropping is one of the easiest mistakes to make in product photography. Images on your website are side by side, and inconsistencies attract the eye. Your customers will notice if some of your footwear images are more zoomed in than others, and they will notice if products the same distance away from the camera are higher or lower than each other. They will notice differences in lighting, differences in focus, and so on. All such inconsistencies divert attention from the product.
7-dos-and-donts-of-diy-footwear-product-photography by Shopify
The Beginner’s Guide to Product Photography
Shopify have written an article The Beginner’s Guide to Product Photography which gives and in-depth look at how to go about photographing your products. It is indepth but there are a few gems in there.
If your products are of a smaller size, you are in luck. There are DIY photo studios, like the Foldio, that you can purchase for under $100.00. These are quality investments for ecommerce entrepreneurs, especially if you plan on adding new products to your website regularly. They are portable, easy to setup and dramatically improve the quality of your product photography without breaking the bank.
The Beginner’s Guide to Product Photography by Shopify
