Clear, compelling images help customers feel confident enough during their online shopping experience to hit ‘add to cart’ — and actually complete the shopping cart journey.

Asking how to take great product images for your online store?

Don’t settle for ‘it depends.’

It doesn’t depend. Certain rules yield excellent results if followed. If you have to DIY your pictures or commission this important task to a professional product photo service, the rules are nearly the same.

In this article, we outline the major techniques that give high-quality results. Squareshot has been in the business since 2017, and we have shot tens of thousands of products for 2500+ brands. Below is the essence of what we have learned.

Can you DIY your shoot and achieve a high-quality output?

‍Long story short: yes, you can do your product photography yourself. It’s going to be passable at the least, but if you watch a few tutorials on how to shoot a product image on your own, they can come out pretty good.

But.

If you go to the lengths of establishing your own brand and you have some marketing budgets, quality product images are the one investment with the highest ROI.

This is why:

1. They are used from the Top of the conversion Funnel to the Bottom of the Funnel – at all stages, across all channels, bringing ROI at every stage of the customer journey.
2. Images are great conversion boosters. They capture attention in the busy social media feed and provide details of the product at the decision stage.
3. Product images cut down on returns by showing the product exactly as it is — no surprises, no disappointment. 30% of the products bought online are returned, 22% of them look different from the pictures. (Imagine the scale of damage to your bottom line if the returns are free to the buyer.)

However, the primary reason product images for the website are crucial to the success of your e-commerce business is that they serve as a key tool for bridging the gap between the offline and online shopping experiences. They allow your potential customers to see the item in fine detail, nearly feel its texture, and imagine it in use in a real-life context.

Most of the best practices below work for any budget.

Pro-Level Product Photos Start Here

If you are reading this, you are on the right track. Save yourself time and money by learning from other people’s mistakes.

First of all, make sure you know the answers to these questions:

• What option will you choose? DIY, freelance, or professional product photography service?
• What type of product images do you need?
• Do you need a hero image?
• What type of lighting will you use, and why?
• How do you plan to arrange your products for the shoot? Flat-lay? Hanging? On the mannequin?

Once you have these answers, you can start planning the job.

Plan the shoot to the dot

There are many things and many people that should come together on the day of the shoot, so it needs a lot of coordination and planning. When taking photos for an e-commerce site, make sure you have these arranged:

• Photo equipment (tripod, camera, charged batteries, lenses, lighting equipment, photo table, backdrop, reflectors, C-stands, studio strobes, holders)
• Location (A photo studio or an outside location for lifestyle photos)
• Photographer & assistant
• Models, MUA, hairdressers
• List of items grouped in series or sorted in a sequence of shooting.
• Intact items as per the list: cleaned, ironed, dusted, lined up, and ready to go before the photographer arrives.
• Props (from textured backgrounds to flowers, books, cups of coffee, sports gear, etc.)
• Cleaning materials, iron, mannequins, nylon thread, blue tack, double-sided scotch tape, and other fixing materials.
• Insurance for expensive jewelry items

These are just a few of the key prior arrangements to take care of, pay for, and organize to be on time.

Get your photo equipment right

A professional DSLR camera will give the best quality in the right hands, as getting settings right matters a lot and requires skills. The quality of the lens has more impact on the resulting image than the grade of your camera. Lighting is another key variable in this formula.

Tripod, the least expensive and easiest-to-use piece of photo equipment, is of paramount importance for consistency and focus, so even if you DIY, you shoot, get yourself a $30 tripod for your smartphone from Amazon.

Infinitive curve backgrounds can be made from a piece of paper from a craft store or be a special, mounted set of rolls of backgrounds used in professional studios.

Choose the right types of images

Standalone upfront shoot

These professional product images are to be used on your product pages in your online store and for merchant e-commerce platforms. They'd usually be done against a white background, be well-lit, and the item should take up 80-85% of the entire frame. No props are to be used.

Reverse side

Sneakers, accessories, clothing photography needs a few angles for a better understanding of the detailing and design. The back of an item with ¾ angles is a rather common version.

Close up snapshot

Premium items, as well as smaller products with fine details, require a close-up snapshot. It can be a pocket on the cardigan, a collar of a coat, or a handle of the bag. If you carry cheap items with subpar quality at low rates, showing some imperfections can be a good way to reduce return rates.

Group image

If you have a cosmetic online store, you can make a shot of the entire line of products, for example, an avocado series or a chamomile series of products. Such group images are great for the category page on your online store; they also work well for social media, especially with some props – an avocado or a bunch of chamomiles, in this case.

Hero shots

At Squareshot, our creative shoots are built around strong visuals and thoughtful execution. Instead of relying on heavy art direction, we focus on producing clean, effective imagery that helps products stand out.

When it comes to e-commerce, “hero shot” is used more often to define a central shot in a series or category that carries some emotional weight.

Scale image

An oversized sweater on its own may look like a regular sweater. So if you need to provide your audience a sense of scale, use other common objects on the same image or models to give an understanding of how big or small your item is.

Model shot

There are two main reasons to use models when you take pics for an online store: to make an object resonate more with your potential customer, as the model is in the same demographic range, or to make a potential buyer better imagine an item in context. Clothing, shoes, and accessories are often pictured on models for these reasons.

Packaged product

Packaging may cost thousands of dollars to design and produce. Cosmetic photography, perfume images often feature packaging, as they may cost quite a bit and packaging also carries the function of being an anti-counterfeit feature as well as adding up to branding.

Use the creative background to tell a vivid story

Textured backgrounds and colored backdrops may add up to the ambiance of your website and branding perception. Industrially looking graffiti, weathered wood, rusty iron may be good to feature man products against, for example.

Make images of all product variables,

Using color correction to present items in different hues is not a good idea. If you have resources, make sure to take pictures of your products in all shapes and shades.

Be consistent

Consistency across your website and social media makes your brand look professional. Unknowingly, people are used to very high standards of web design these days. So, images of varying sizes, lighting, shadows, and lack of post-production may deter a potential buyer, just as they will feel visual discord.

Retouch your pictures

Just enough post-production is intended to make your product images for online stores look professional but still very much representative of the real product. Post-production is much more expensive than picture taking, so ensure you do all that is necessary to minimize the need for editing: wipe your objects clean of fingerprints, supply your photographer with references, and be there to approve your product images before the set gets destroyed.

We have written an A-Z guide to product photography post-production for our clients that may be useful for all e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Optimize images for your website

People have zero patience now and have access to a wealth of A-list entertainment at their fingertips. If you pay to get their attention via ads, you'd better make sure your site is lightning fast. High-resolution images usually have a high quality and can be heavy, slowing down your site.

Using the right format with the right resolution for the right page on your website is critical in e-commerce, as the conversion rate drops with every passing second. Great product images can be the difference between a bounce and a full shopping cart.

Naming conventions are also significant for SERP results, so by assigning the right ALT tags and providing clear product descriptions, you have a chance to lower your CPC (cost per click) and increase your CTRs (click through rate).

Professional product photography for an online store

High-quality product images are a key asset in digital marketing, helping your brand stand out and drive more traffic to your online store.

If you have enough budget and ambition so that you can delegate taking photos for an e-commerce site to a product photography service, consider giving Squareshot a try.