Quality product photography is an essential part of any business’ digital marketing. Whether photos are posted on social media or on a business’ website, a quality photo can make the difference in converting impressions into sales. According to bigcommerce.com, "93% of consumers consider images essential in their purchasing decisions." Product photography allows a business to accurately represent their products and services by highlighting their quality and value. It is how a business can present themselves and give the right first impression to their audience. A quality product photo will attract users to engage with it and show them the finer details of the product, giving users a sense of transparency in that business and developing trust in their brand. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a picture that can intrigue multiple people to purchase that item and create brand loyalty, is priceless.
You don’t have to be a professional photographer or spend an enormous amount of money on equipment to produce attractive product photos. Cameras are a lot more affordable and most smartphones are equipped with good cameras allowing you to capture quality pictures on your own. However, even with these readily available resources, foundational best practices must be followed in order to create quality product photography. An essential piece of equipment is a tripod with an adapter to mount your smartphone.
Tripods are inexpensive and using one keeps your product photos crisp and consistent. There are two types of tripods to choose from, one is the traditional and the other is the flexible. Traditional tripods usually have a height range between two to over five feet and are used for a variety of shots. Flexible tripods are usually a foot and smaller and are used more for close up product photos. Regardless of which tripod you decide to use, remember, your main objective is to develop a consistency in your product photography.
The two types of product photography are product images on a clean white background and lifestyle or action photos of the products. Ecommerce websites can utilize both types of product photography but tend to use more of product images on a clean white background because this method has a significantly higher rate of conversion for ecommerce. For items sold directly online, you want to show close to a dozen quality photos of the products with many different angles and a few action shots. Be creative with the presentation of your products. Clothes are presented well on a mannequin, jewelry can be shot on a bust or on a textured cloth of a contrasting color, and glue dots can be used to hold smaller items in place for that perfect product photo. You want to use a sweep for your clean white background.
HubSpot describes a sweep as "a large bendable sheet of paper, whose bottom acts as the surface beneath your product and then curves up into a white wall behind the product. On camera, the sweep's curve is invisible, emphasizing key product details and allowing the item to own all of a website visitor's attention." This gives you very crisp product photos that shows as much detail as possible. Lifestyle or action shots are emotionally engaging to customers. They highlight the products value in “real-world” poses. These shots can be set up in an indoor setting or outside. Once again, let your creativity take charge with these product photos. Use someone to model that handbag as they walk down the street, get a shot of a young child swinging their bat at a t-ball on its stand, or a couple enjoying their evening at your restaurant. Regardless of the location of the product photo shoot, whether it’s inside or outside, you must consider the last foundational block. Lighting.
There are two kinds of lighting for photography, natural light and artificial light. Natural light refers to sunlight and artificial light is any other light source such as flashes and LED lights. No matter what light source you use, the ultimate goal is to reduce shadows on your products. The right lighting setup distributes light evenly, highlighting the features that influence your buyers’ decisions to purchase your products. You only want to use one kind of lighting per photo, either natural or artificial light, because the combination of the two causes uneven lighting. Since natural light is free, it’s definitely the most cost-effective option, but during certain times of day the sun casts harsh shadows. Shadows take away the quality and value of your product and eliminate the effectiveness of the photo. The best time to use natural light for a photo shoot is during times of the softest light, early in the morning and later in the evening when the sun is setting.
You must keep in mind to shoot your photos at a steady pace to avoid light and shadow shifts on your products when using natural light. If you don’t want to depend on or plan around the sun, you can purchase studio lights or a product photography tent. Both kinds of lighting can be distributed more evenly on the product by using either a diffuser or reflector. A diffuser softens the light and takes away harsh shadows, whereas a reflector reflects the lights back onto the product and removes smaller shadows. After the product photography shoot, the next step is to touch up and polish your pictures. Finishing your photos with an image-editing tool can make a huge difference and make your photos stand out past your competition. There are professional editing tools like Lightroom that can be purchased or there are many free options like Pixlr that can be used. Along with editing your pictures, you want to optimize them as well. Resizing and compressing your images gives you the best quality image without sacrificing any page load speed. You can also optimize your SEO by using keywords in the images’ metadata descriptions. Learning how to use the right lighting is a powerful skill to master in product photography and with this foundational knowledge, you’re well on your way to capturing great product photos.
The best way to hone your product photography skills is to practice. Familiarize yourself with the different kinds of lighting and the finishing and editing processes. Explore new ideas when presenting your products in action. Be creative when making a set to show your product in a “real-world” setting. Remember, you’re not going to use every picture you take, so take lots of photos and be very picky when selecting which photos to finish and publish. Only publish your best work. It may not come to you overnight, but applying and mastering these basic skills will solidify your product photography foundation. Before you know, you will be impressing yourself, along with all you customers, with the quality of your product photography.
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