Great photos will help you sell more products online, whether you operate an independent small business site or you run a shop on a site like Etsy or eBay. For professional tips on taking your own great product photos, check out the following tutorials and articles.
1. 10 Tips for Effective Product Photography
The folks at WixBlog help you build an e-commerce site with unique, attractive photos. Learn how to get rid of harsh lighting and find out why it’s helpful to give shoppers a sense of scale with objects that aren’t instantly recognizable. This article also gives you a few quick and dirty tips on shooting in macro and enhancing images after the shoot.
2. Etsy Success: Product Photography for Beginners
Don’t miss the quick video here (it’s less than 3 minutes long) from an actual Etsy shop owner. This video is perfect for beginners who don’t have fancy DSLR cameras and thousands of dollars to spend on professional lighting and staging equipment. Learn about the importance of photogenic backgrounds, natural light and a willingness to experiment with backdrops, angles and products.
3. 16 Simple Photo Tips to Get More Money When Selling Your Things
On the Man vs. Debt blog, you have a chance to go back to the basics. This post emphasizes the importance of making sure your products are clean, your backgrounds are simple, and your product fills the full frame of the photo. It also cautions against heavy enhancements that hide defects in your products. Because let’s face it, people buying a used item on Ebay, for example, want to know exactly what they’re bidding on.
4. How to Take Gorgeous Product Photos
This post from Practical Ecommerce gives you some useful advice on equipment and settings. If you’re convinced you need to buy an expensive DSLR to take great product photos, you might be surprised to learn that the camera on your phone can take excellent photographs, too. You just have to know how to use it. Check out the Nikon vs. iPhone 5 side-by-side comparison and judge for yourself.
5. 5 Tips for Photographing Beauty Products
How you shoot your inventory depends a lot on what it is you’re selling. This article covers lighting, props, backgrounds and angles for photographing beauty products specifically, but it gives you some general rules you can apply for shooting any product that is highly aesthetic and likely to show up on visual sites like Pinterest.
6. The Simple Guide to Shooting a Perfectly Lit Product Photo
For those who want more detailed, step-by-step instructions for professional setups, check out this tutorial from the people at Tuts Plus. It shows you how to photograph a shoe like a real pro. This setup requires some extra equipment, so if you don’t have umbrellas and light meters, this might be a little too tedious for your needs.
There’s no question that better photos equal more sales and higher revenue. Take some time to learn a few tricks of the trade, and you can produce higher quality product photos on a budget.
