In the burgeoning world of e-commerce, it’s getting pretty competitive. The major difference between a successful online store and an unsuccessful one largely depends on the quality of the web design. And good e-commerce web design is largely dependent on the quality of your photography.
Product photography is your only means of showcasing the products your offering and, when a person can’t physically handle the product before making a purchase, the photos are the only way they can make a connection with the item before purchase. The secret to good product photography is mostly just getting started, and taking it seriously. For a small startup business, there are a lot of moving pieces and it can be tempting to take shortcuts on the product photos. Slow down and take your time so that you get the most out of each shot.
Product Photography Tools
Photography can get really expensive really fast but you can make it affordable if you focus on the basics. You need a high quality digital SLR camera to take decent photos. Can you get good pictures on your iPhone camera? Yes. But the use of a decent lens is what makes or breaks your shot. Use a real camera with a lens you can focus. This will give your shot depth, texture, and that extra something that you can’t always get with a quick cell phone selfie. You’ll also want to position the camera on a sturdy tripod to avoid any shakiness or blurred shots.
After you actually capture the photos, you’ll want to load them into a photo editing software to make the proper touch-ups. This can be something robust like Adobe Photoshop or it can be any number of free tools for doing digital edits, like GIMP or PicMonkey. You’ll want to remove any blemishes and oddities from the image so that it’s straightforward and clean.
Studio Setup and Shot Variety
Once you’ve got a decent camera, some even lighting, and a table set up to feature your products, it’s time to start shooting. Most e-commerce websites only need one good shot of each product but, depending on what you’re selling, you may need a variety of angles to feature all aspects of the product. Remember, your shoppers can’t handle the product themselves from their laptop so they will want to see a variety of photographs to get a sense of what they’re buying.
Good, even lighting mean two to three light sources. Light coming in through a window can be one source of light, but it will create shadows so you’ll need to have another light source on the back side of the product. Good lighting and appropriate depth of focus is the secret to good product photography and there are countless guides on the internet that explain three-point lighting and basic camera technique.
Saving for the Web
When it comes time to save your final photos, make sure you save them as small sized JPG files that don’t take forever to load on the website. You want to be under 300kb in size in order to avoid lag in the load times.
Good product photography can mean the difference in success or failure for today’s online retailers. Signal Interactive specializes in e-commerce web design and high quality custom product photography for a variety of industries, from restaurant food photos to luxury fashion brands.
Call us for rates and information on how we can make your products sizzle on the screen.
888.527.6621
