If you are browsing the web even for a very short period of time, there’s a high chance you will come across some sorts of ads selling you products. It’s literally everywhere and absolutely unavoidable.
While businesses are making billions selling products; photographers are making millions by photographing these products. There is a very high demand for product photos and its sections expand across numerous sub-genres.
In this article, we’ll be explaining some of the most common types of product photography that businesses often require.
Before getting started lets first learn a bit about what is product photography and how impact on businesses.
What is product photography?
Taking product pictures with the intention of generating sales and establishing brand awareness is what is called product photography. It is considered to be the fundamental requirement for all eCommerce companies to compete and run their business properly.
How it impacts business?
Customers rely on pictures when they purchase anything from any online store. If the product photos look authentic and appealing, it increases its chance of being sold. Companies can either thrive in business or suffer catastrophic loss; and that purely depends on their product photos and brand image.
People will skim over your product listing if it doesn’t look appealing, whereas, a good photo will catch customer’s attention; even if they do not intend to buy it, they might at least take a glance at it if it seems interesting.
White Background Product photography
It is the most common process by which people take product photos. You will see clear background photos for products in most eCommerce sites, especially on Amazon.
With a white background, the focus stays mainly on the product and allows products to be accurately represented without any distractions. The white background also promotes consistency and gives products a more professional look and feel, along with increasing the trust on the seller.
The background can be easily cut off if shot on a white background. For bulk editing service you can contact us. See our pricing here. The white background is also fairly inexpensive and easy to setup. You can find a lot of cheap lightboxes and combo light setup on Amazon.
Group product photography
The natural tendency of customers is that they are never satisfied with what is displayed in front of them; they want more options. Customers will often ask to see variations of the same product. Grouping products in the shot is a great way to show multiple items at once.
You can have multiple colors or design variations and shoot them in the same frame, or you can group completely different products. With group photos, you will have a bit of freedom in arranging and decorating your products to make them look more cohesive and interesting.
Lifestyle product photography
Lifestyle photography can be a great option to show how the products will look in real-life scenarios. Such as shooting a model wearing a yoga dress, doing actual yoga in the morning. This will show customers willing to buy yoga dresses how they might look and feel in such setups. These sorts of setups will allow customers to decide whether they actually want the product or not.
Doing lifestyle product photography is very effective and used by most professional eCommerce and non-eCommerce companies to sell their products.
Studio Setup for product photography
Studio photography is the best solution if you want ultimate control over how products look. With a studio setup, you don’t need to worry about sunlight messing up your exposure and white balance, you can have your own isolated setup. You won’t be frustrated with people moving around creating an unnecessary nuisance or wind messing your setup. Everything is easy and sorted out.
With studio setup, you can permanently fix the lighting and position of your photographic framing. The same style and mood can be achieved repeatedly which helps to achieve consistency throughout the shoot.
Studio setup is preferable for bulk shooting tasks. Usually, professional photographers with a larger budget have studio setups. There are also cheaper ways to achieve such an arrangement if you are into DIY.
Ghost mannequin product photography
For a realistic 3D look, people are opting for the ghost mannequin effect. Hiring actual model is expensive and has a lot of management issues, whereas, mannequins are a onetime inexpensive investment with little to no maintenance cost.
Ghost mannequins aim to produce a feeling as if the product is actually worn by a person. It conveys a unique perspective look and feel to your photos. After the product photos have been shot, the mannequin is cut off in post-processing. We provide ghost mannequin services, contact us for more details.
Ghost Mannequin photographs are usually taken by fashion houses and the garments industry.
Product packaging photography
Product packaging is an important part that gets neglected by many photographers. Almost all products require some sort of packaging and many companies want package photoshoots.
Professional companies spend millions of dollars on making unique and gorgeous packaging for which they are willing to pay high-price for good photos. Their packaging is also a part of their brand image. If you are a photographer then ask your clients if they want to do packaging shoots. If yes; you’ve got a chance to earn some extra cash.
Macro product photography
This is useful if you want to shoot small products or want to show detailed shots of certain products. For example, you might have a leather wallet and want to show the professional and cared handcrafted stitching of the wallet.
Macro photography is a great way of showing very precise details of products that lets customers have a close look at the quality of the products before buying it.
Image editing for product photography
It is important to edit images before actually uploading it online. When it comes to photos, there is always room for improvement. Even the slightest adjustments can alter to complete the look of the product.
Often times there will be some level of issues such as dust, debris, spots, etc. persisting on the products even after properly cleaning them before the shoot. Such issues need to be fixed in post-processing.
Editing yourself can be time-consuming and having an in-house design team can very costly, so we recommend using a professional editing site like ours. Visit fix the retouch for all your editing needs.
Conclusion
There are various types of sub-genres in product photography. The ones that we’ve discussed are just a few examples. What you need to understand is that whatever product photography you get into; it needs to be effective and should serve the purpose of its intention. Editing is another crucial factor that needs to be considered for achieving professional product photos. Without it, your product photos will be never complete.