Product Photography Process - Techniques & Tips

Product photography is everywhere! What used to be a niche form of photography stuck in glossy catalogues and billboards is now splurged across the internet. Whether it’s Amazon, eBay, Facebook Marketplace or the myriad of business websites, everywhere you look is product photography. It may be multiple angles on a plain white background, funky closeups on a homepage banner, or maybe a model showcasing an item, but good, bad, and indifferent, it’s Product Photography.

This article discusses the process that is Product Photography. It does not deal with equipment or camera settings, we’ll talk about that separately. Nor does it discuss style, angles or how to shoot different types of items. This article is about what you need to think about; how to prepare; the method of taking the images; and what to do afterwards.

Plain Background & High Volume

We’re going to talk about those products that need to be photographed on a plain (probably white) background. We’ll assume there are lots of them, and that they probably belong to various product categories. If you don’t have this scenario then some of this won’t apply but it’s still worth thinking about.

If you are photographing your products at your own site then you have the advantage of control and product knowledge. If you are an independent photographer then you need to liaise with someone who has these things! Personally, I prefer shooting at the client site with a representative of the client with me at all times. Now I know some photographers prefer lots of boxes to be delivered to their studios and then to be left in peace, but this is not the way to understand the customer, their requirements and their products! Depending on volume you may need a few people - one to unpack, repack, and categorise the products, another to maintain the spreadsheet, and another to make sure that the creative side (angles, depth of field, detail) are all as required. More of this later!

Preparation

Before the day (or days) it’s a good idea to make sure that there’s a space at the client site that you can use. This isn’t always ideal, but preferably you want the following:

• Space. Enough space to set up your gear, a table and backdrops if required, and room for the products.

• Controllable lighting. Lights in the building that can be turned off, skylights that have blinds. You want the lighting on the item to be your lighting.

• Power. Sounds ridiculous but don’t take it for granted. Take a long extension lead!

The other thing to insist on is that all the products are picked in advance, grouped by product type and ready to go. If this isn’t done you'll spend a lot of your time waiting. If possible have them put all the product codes on a spreadsheet along with what angles they want for each one. Product codes as rows and Angles as columns. Take a look at it in advance and try to understand as many of the products as you can.

Shooting

The day is here. You arrive on time and then deal with all the things that haven’t been done. Sort out the space, clear old boxes that weren’t moved, and maybe even sweep the floor! Next, you can discuss why the blinds don’t work and the lights need to go off in the whole building! Then you can find the coffee machine whilst they get the products that they told you were already picked. Chances are the person they allocated to help you is in a meeting, so be patient!!

You set up your equipment whilst all this is going on, and try to talk about the products so you understand them and what their unique features might be. Suggest some angles and close-ups that may add value when you discuss the requirements.

So now the good part. If you’re shooting multiple angles of each product type, DO NOT try and shoot all the angles of each item and then move on to the next one. Two reasons - 1) you’ll spend all day changing the tripod and lights for each angle over and over again, and 2) You won’t get them consistent anyway! For each product type, group the products and shoot all of them at the first angle, then change the equipment and shoot all of them at the second angle, and so on. This means once you agree on the lighting and angle of the first product you can do each one very quickly. To make it even quicker use a template or guide to make sure that each product goes in the same place, you shouldn’t need to move the camera, lights or tripod. What you’ve now got is a factory line. If you’re well organised as we discussed earlier then someone is preparing, unpacking and cleaning each item, you’re putting it in the right place, and someone else is completing the spreadsheet so you can name the image later with the product code or whatever standard the client wants.

All this should mean that the photography now proceeds very quickly. Now of course, if the product types keep varying and there aren’t many of each one then things will slow down between each as you agree on the new angles.

I’ve mentioned that spreadsheet a few times now. For high volumes, this is very important. Now I know what you're going to say, you shoot live onto a laptop and rename the image with the product code there and then, job done! Why do all that faffing of spreadsheets and then renaming them during post-processing?

The answer is a few reasons. Importantly if the client maintains the spreadsheet then there is no debate later as to whether a certain product was photographed, or with what angles. If you don’t have a record of what was done things may get awkward. The second reason is you’re going to post-process the images later anyway, so rename them then. You want everything as fast as possible at the client site so you can get as many items completed as you can. Mucking around with a laptop is not going to help that!

Before we move on, one more tip. Do the straightforward product types which have lots of items first. This means you leave the awkward stuff to later and you’ll be up and running quickly, and probably do 80% of the images with little changing of equipment. Leave the awkward items, arty shots, and group shots to last.

A final tip (sorry). Before you change the equipment after each product type or angle - check that there is nothing else to shoot with that setup. It’s very irritating to go back and do this again when something magically appears that needs photographing that you didn’t know about. Ask at least twice!!

A further final tip (sorry again). Hopefully, you’ll be asked to go back and do more items as they are made or in stock, whatever. You’re going to have to re-create those angles as accurately as you can. So diagram your equipment, measure where everything is, height and distance, and photograph your gear. Basically, anything that will help you re-create the setup. If you’re in a dedicated space, draw on the floor!

Post

Now you’ve done the shooting day or days, you’ve got the hard work to do.

You’ll need to be organised, set up Macros and Actions within Photoshop to make things as efficient as you can. How much of this you do yourself or outsource is up to you, but remember a couple of things: it’s your company name on this at the end, and you were there when the photography was done so you know what the customer wanted and what the items actually looked like.

Assuming you’re doing the post-processing, as usual, there are some things to do in RAW and some in Photoshop. I’m not going to tell you what to do where or how to do these things, but I will give some general advice for each one.

• Brightness, white balance, position. Make them consistent for each item and angle. You don’t want things dancing around the screen when you scroll through the images! Check with the customer how much white space they want around the item. If possible see the website to get an idea of where the images will be used. You don’t want them too small.

• Plain white background. Chances are the client wants a plain white background with no shadows or reflections. I know this is boring but it’s what the customer wants. Unless you managed to shoot with an FFFFFF background with no shadow then you’ll have to cut it out yourself and do this. Remember the greater the contrast between the object and the background the easier this will be.

• Sharpness and Contrast. It’s nice to make the images pop but don’t over sharpen them either.

• Spot healing. There will always be some blemishes, fingerprints or whatever, particularly on more industrial items. Clean them up as best you can.

• Agree on the formats with the customer in advance. Do they want TIFF, JPEGs, PSD, PNGs, or perhaps more than one?

• Resolution. Again, agree this upfront. Running the images through an image processor isn’t hard but you don’t want to keep doing it. The customer may require different sizes depending on their use so be aware of this and organise them appropriately.

Hurrah! So you’ve finished. If you have thousands of images it’s a good idea to agree on a priority with the customer; perhaps send through one of each type so they can get testing if it’s for a new website. When you agree on a delivery timescale keep the customer updated and drop images on a daily basis so they can see progress. Chances are they won’t keep up with you and then won’t be hassling for the remainder!

Hopefully, you won’t have many come back for re-work, particularly if you agreed everything onsite and then send samples through before processing the bulk of them. This is where the real benefit of shooting with the customer comes through - chances are there isn’t any confusion as to what you shot, how, or why!!