DIY E-commerce Photography On A Budget: [6] Tips From The Great Depression

When a visitor first arrives on a website, the graphics or the visuals attract them the most. The photographs will always be more informative than the product descriptions, even if the product descriptions are the most detailed.

Photographs of your items provide information about their specifications and demonstrate whether the product is of great quality. If this is the case, here are some practical strategies to help you take great images on a budget while still maintaining the quality of the photographs.

To entice your intended audience to make a purchase, product photography employs various techniques and procedures. In addition, it’s possible to utilize E-commerce product photography to promote your items in various ways, especially for eCommerce businesses.

Photoshoots may be broken down into lifestyle shots or shots of only the product itself. There are many different ways to photograph a product, but one of the most effective ways is to photograph it alone. It has a white or off-white backdrop and is generally in crisp focus. Your product may be shown in action with a lifestyle shot.

Why is Product Ecommerce Photography Important? 

Your brand’s visual identity is shaped by the product photographs you use. Your eCommerce website, social media, and other digital marketing efforts will all make use of it. Quality product shots are what your target audience will use to form their initial impression of your business.

Moreover, it will increase sales. Our brains are programmed to respond better when it comes to visual stimuli. Even if you don’t like it, your target audience is more likely to respond to your website’s product photographs than to the rest of your material. The quality of your photographs directly influences the perceived worth of your items.

Your brand’s trustworthiness will be shown if you do it correctly. This is why it’s important to do it properly. So often, a written description is not enough to convince the customer to purchase a product. Rather the image does the work.

6 DIY E-commerce Photography Tips On A Budget

Camera

A product photography session would be incomplete without a camera. Because smartphone cameras have improved so much in recent years, you no longer need to buy an expensive DSLR camera to take great photos. 

You may find that the camera on your smartphone, which you’re more comfortable and skilled, allows you to take better pictures of your products. People won’t even notice that you didn’t use a DSLR camera if you utilize the right backdrop and lighting.

As a result, DSLR cameras are becoming more accessible to the general public. It’s still preferable to have a higher-end camera if you can afford it. If you get the white balance and aperture settings just perfect, you’ll have a great photo. Wide-angle lenses and apertures are notorious for producing artifacts like distortion and blur.

Tripod

You wind up with a dozen blurry photos after much time and work spent on the backdrop and lighting. It’s considerably simpler to get sharp photographs when you use a tripod. Consistency is another benefit of using a tripod.

Owning a tripod is an excellent investment since you’ll be using it for many years to come. However, if money is a concern, you may be able to get by without a tripod. Instead of using a tripod, try using a chair or a stack of books to assist in steadying your camera.

The right background

You’ll find it much simpler to edit your photos if you have the correct backdrop. For eCommerce photography, white or light-colored matte backdrops are ideal. However, reflective surfaces might cause undesired highlights, so you may end up with additional editing work to do.

The good news is that you don’t need to purchase a photo sweep or a studio lightbox to create a backdrop. It all depends on your item type so that you may need some white paper and some chairs. Paper rolls are better than sweeps or light boxes since you can cut off a bit of the backdrop and roll down a clean piece when you need to clear up a messy area.

Lighting

When it comes to photography, lighting is perhaps the most crucial consideration (even more critical if you are shooting products). Lighting takes a lot of time and effort, but the rewards are well worth it. In addition, it will aid you in editing.

You have two alternatives for lighting: studio light or natural light. It doesn’t matter which method you use, and you must guarantee that your goods are well-lit. To get the color right in product photography, it’s best to avoid bright highlights and deep shadows altogether.

Photo editing

Even if you’ve already shot a few photographs that you like, retouching is still a vital step along the way. This will transform your photographs from ordinary to extraordinary and guarantee that all product images on your website’s quality, lighting, and placement are uniform.

Color correction, removing undesired items, and lighting modifications are all possible with retouching. Like photographing your product is important, photo editing for an eCommerce business also plays an important role. 

You can get affordable professional photo editing services such as UCP to retouch your photos. In addition, photo editing services such as shadow creation, color correction, background removal, and ghost mannequin are always needed for eCommerce business. 

Consistency is the key

Create a set of guidelines for your brand.

When it comes to building a brand identity, consistency is crucial. To ensure that your eCommerce photography and post-processing follow your brand’s voice and narrative, as well as your color palette and font choices and palette, you need to set aside some time to do so.

Consider setting up your branding standards in light, photography angle, color and saturation, shadow photography composition. 

Fortunately, you won’t have to stump up any money to put together your rules. A few minutes of your time will suffice. It’s a good idea to jot down these principles so that you don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to your next picture session.

Final Words

We are a visually oriented group of people. Therefore, while the quality of your content and goods may be excellent, your consumers will notice if your product photos aren’t up to standard.

Even if you can’t afford to hire a professional product photographer right now, you can still take high-quality images of your products by following a few simple guidelines.

Your product photograph reflects the quality and worth of your product and the overall image of your company. It can enhance conversions and generate revenue in the long term if done correctly.