Customers cannot touch what they buy, so your photos have to do it for them. A short checklist before you shoot saves hours of fixing afterwards, and it makes the retouching you pay for work harder.
Before you shoot
- Check your platform’s rules. Marketplaces and store themes each ask for a minimum size, a background colour and sometimes a square crop.
- Clean the product. Wipe off dust, fingerprints and lint. These are the marks that cost the most to remove from dozens of images.
- Steam or iron fabric. Wrinkles in the product look like defects in the photo.
- Choose one background and use it for the whole catalogue.
Light
- Use soft, even light. Hard shadows and glare cost time to fix and rarely look good.
- Keep the light the same from shot to shot, so colours and shadows match across the set.
- Add a grey card or colour reference in a test shot. It makes it easy to match colour to the real product.
Angles
Shoot a front view, a back view, the sides, a close-up of the details that matter and one image that shows scale. Customers who see how big something is return fewer items.
Technical settings
- Shoot at the highest quality your camera offers. RAW files hold the most information if your retoucher can work with them.
- Keep the camera on a tripod and at the same distance and height for each product.
- Leave a little room around the product, because cropping is easier than extending.
Name your files
Use a consistent naming scheme such as product code, then view: SKU123-front, SKU123-back. It speeds up uploading and saves mistakes.
What to leave for retouching
Background clean-up, dust and mark removal, colour matching and consistent cropping are all faster and cheaper to do in editing than to fight in the studio. See e-commerce photo retouching for how that works, with a 2 to 3 business day turnaround.
If you also need the store itself, see online store design.
Marketplaces and stores have different rules
A marketplace may demand a pure white background and a square image. Your own store may suit a soft grey or a coloured backdrop. Check the rules before you shoot, not after, and keep the original full-size files so you can prepare one version for each place that needs it. If you sell on several platforms, plan the shoot around the strictest rule and crop for the others.
Keep the whole catalogue consistent
Customers compare products without knowing it. If one photo is bright and another is dim, the dim one looks cheaper. Keep the camera height and distance, the light and the background the same across the shoot. If you shoot in several sessions, write the settings down. If a product is photographed months later, you will want to match it.
A short list of common problems
- Colour that does not match the real product. A grey card in a test shot lets a retoucher match the colour exactly. Always check the most colour-sensitive items, such as fabrics and wood, against the real object.
- Reflections of the photographer. Glossy products show the room. Move away, use a tent, or plan for retouching.
- Dust and fingerprints. They look small on the shoot and obvious on a big screen.
- Shadows that fall differently from product to product. A consistent soft shadow looks professional. Random shadows look careless.
Related guides
If you also plan to build or improve your store, read about what a brand book is and why a small business needs one, and see online store design. For a landing page that sells one product or offer, read the landing page checklist.
Need the photos edited?
Send me two or three sample images and tell me where they will be used. I reply with a plan, a quote and a turnaround. Product and e-commerce retouching takes 2 to 3 business days, and a discount applies from 50 images. You can request a retouching quote here, or call, email or message me using the details at the bottom of this page.
