Digital Photoshoot For E-Commerce Site

December 30, 2008 6:05 AM

Taking digital photos of entire product inventory for display on our company website. Tips?

About to get started, I feel like we're in decent shape but may as well see if anyone has any tips before I start this massive project and realize halfway through that my amateurishness has yielded an inferior result.

Tools: Nice digital camera, cheap do-it-yourself fold-up photo "studio" which includes a three-sided white backdrop and two lights.

Any tips? Simple pitfalls to avoid? I will be photographing hundreds of items, from beverages to snack items to bags of coffee. Individual units and boxes.

posted by yom3ts to technology (14 comments total)

Only comment I have is that few things are as annoying as a product thumbnail that pops up to show an "enlarged" photo not substantially different in size than the thumbnail. Make sure whoever is putting the site together knows that having higher-resolution images is a GOOD thing.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:14 AM on December 30, 2008

A tripod may give you sharper pictures. Also, Google "light tent". It may give better results than your three-sided white backdrop and they're easy to make if you don't want to buy one.

You also may want or need to enhance your pictures with software. You might want to start with Google's Picassa. It's free, easy to use and a good way to also organize your pictures. Of course, there are better products available, but Picassa has a short learning curve and you could be using it in minutes.

Also, there a trade-off between image quality and the speed in which a web page loads. You need to investigate the issues and the tools and techniques that can help. Personally, I think fast loading pages are extremely important and should be a high priority.
posted by 14580 at 6:37 AM on December 30, 2008

Depending on your product line, it is very helpful to have "in action" shots as well. Those are the interior of bags, examples of how a product is used, etc.

Use props in display photos for certain items such as backpacks where the pen holder has pens, the file slot has documents, and the computer pouch has, well, a computer. It is also a good idea to have a wide variety of props so that you don't use the same ones in all the pictures. Props should be set up with the item by an assistant prior to being shot. This will go a long way to making the process move along a lot faster.

Take photos of all different colors of an item and don't just show one and then a small swatch of available colors.

Clothing should be photographed on a model. This shows length, recommended fit, and style details that can't be communicated effectively in a lay down. Model shot highly improve saleability of clothing, even t-shirts.

It is nice to have a reference item to show the relative size of small objects. This can be something like coins or stamps along with stationary items.

You will likely have to do post-production image enhancement to bring out detail on dark colors or blacks. You will definitely need to do post-production if color calibration is required.

Plan ahead for items that need multiple angles (effectively doubling the shoot time for those items).

It's not a bad idea to have inset shots of specific details on an item where that detail makes the difference for people "getting it". These should be set up separately and not just a close up of the regular shot.


If you rely on these photos to really sell your products, I would strongly suggest you have them shot by a professional who does this sort of thing on a regular basis. A good image can make or break the desirability of an online item. With set up, post-production, and image / thumbnail manipulation, these shoots can take a long time – especially for someone who doesn't have experience doing it.
posted by qwip at 6:42 AM on December 30, 2008

One thought that you may have already had is this: use a photo processing app that lets you do batch modifications, such as color correction, curves, etc. Adobe Lightroom is a pretty decent one, though I've never used its competitor Aperture. You really do not want to be opening each photo in Photoshop (or Gimp) to tweak, crop, and resize.

If you need to do bulk image resizing, the ImageMagick programs can be pretty useful. (i.e. mogrify -resize 800x800 -quality 85 *.jpg). I use them all the time when putting photos online.
posted by knave at 7:19 AM on December 30, 2008

qwip has some great points, and hiring someone who does this regularly is indeed the best option, but the reality is that it may not be an option for you, so you may have to make the best of it.

I have done a little bit of product shooting, but nowhere near the volume you are facing in one batch. Off the top of my head, here's a few idea to consider:

Shoot similar items in a row. For example, all glossy boxes, all beverages, then all small items. They require different kinds of lighting, so this will lessen the number of changes. Food and beverage items are picky to light in order to look appetizing. (A fine mist of water sprayed on a beverage container can make it look icy cold, for example.) Glossy boxes can create glare that obscures the writing/pictures on the box. Clothing may look best lit from an angle to show off texture. Dark colors can be notoriously difficult to show texture. White objects can often look gray or yellow or blue, and can be difficult to adjust to true white without blowing out the details.

All this to say, it's not a simple matter of setting up just once and letting your camera do all the work. Googling for lighting tips of specific items will bring you some good ideas. Be patient and use this as a time to learn.

Fortunately, digital photography lets you see immediate results, but don't be fooled by the image on the tiny camera screen. What looks like a sharp, professional photo on a 2 inch screen may actually be a blurry, out of focus disaster when seen at normal size.

I would use a tripod, as suggested, along with a remote release to avoid camera shake. I would also use manual focus, or at least be sure to confirm that your autofocus is actually focusing where you want.

Good luck!
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 7:25 AM on December 30, 2008

Oh, another thought: Don't let your camera set the aperture automatically. Put it into aperture priority and use something between f/8 and f/11. You want your depth of field to be large enough that the entire product is sharply focused, but not using such a small aperture that the entire image suffers. (I'm assuming you will use a tripod and your subject isn't moving, so shutter speed is not an issue.)
posted by knave at 7:28 AM on December 30, 2008

Fuzzy Skinner has more good advice. If you don't have a shutter release cable, you can set your camera's timer function to 2 seconds, so that your hand isn't shaking the camera at the time the photo is snapped. (Still, press the shutter button gently and then get your hand off the camera.)
posted by knave at 7:31 AM on December 30, 2008

It might be worth investigating hooking your camera up to a laptop/pc during shooting.

I haven't played with this that much myself but I am pretty sure with the right software you can change aperture/shutter speed etc from the computer, and also instantly review shots on a much bigger screen.

There would be nothing worse than getting to the end of a whole series of shots and realising that the focus was just off and having to reshoot them, and it can be hard to check focus properly using the camera's lcd.
posted by latentflip at 7:51 AM on December 30, 2008

Note: The laptop/pc would also double as a shutter release cable.
posted by latentflip at 7:52 AM on December 30, 2008

Use more light. You can never have too much light. The smaller the aperture you can use, the more of a safety zone you'll have for focus. The ideal image quality will come from a short shutter speed (long exposures on digital cameras can get noisy) and a small aperture (for a good depth of field) -- both of those require more light.

Bounce the lights off reflectors, don't point them directly at the product. (A piece of styrofoam will do fine as a reflector; even a white wall or ceiling will do in a pinch.) You want soft, even light, no sharp shadows: soft light will reduce glare and reflections. Do not under any circumstances use the in-camera flash.

Do some test shots first, with a variety of different products; run them through the entire production process before you do the whole set -- better to catch your mistakes before it's too late.

The suggestions above re using a tripod, manual focus, remote shutter, and considering hiring a professional instead of doing this yourself are all very good ones.
posted by ook at 9:18 AM on December 30, 2008

Can you afford one of the Ortery e-boxes? I know people who have gotten good results with them.
posted by gudrun at 11:31 AM on December 30, 2008

Thanks a ton for all of your input. Very helpful.

Did some test shots today. Will be replacing the 3 sided "photo studio" thingamajig with a light tent set-up. Some of my items were too large, and the two included lights don't provide enough brightness.

Definitely need more light... Found a good source, now just need some "white light" bulbs.

The following links were helpful, should anyone be in a similar situation:

http://www.shuttertalk.com/articles/diylighting
http://www.creativepro.com/article/digital-photography-how-to-building-a-light-tent
posted by yom3ts at 12:30 PM on December 30, 2008

I don't have a link or experience doing this, but I remember hearing about using some sort of dulling or matte spray (from Krylon if you're in the US, I think) from a photographer that shoots jewelry often. When you're lighting a reflective object--you mentioned beverages and snack items, which could be shiny--the reflective bits are really difficult to control. A dulling spray will get rid of the sheen enough to look good when lit. Search google for tips on this.

Also, I hope you're getting paid well for this; there's a reason this sort of a production can be expensive. Shooting hundreds of products in a controlled manner can be taxing, and I can only imagine the post-production will be a nightmare. Even the cursory minute or two per photo of opening, resizing for web (or whatever usage), and basic contrast adjustment (all of which are necessary for any use, if you want it to look good) will take forever. Then organizing the work of organizing the files in an easy to access manner. Oh man that's a lot of mind-numbing work.

And pray to the photo gods that you don't have any dust on your sensor. With the strobes (pushing your aperture down a bunch, as ook suggested, ensuring maximum dust spot visibility) and white background, you'll likely be spending minutes per photo just with the spot healing tool...
posted by msbrauer at 4:39 PM on December 30, 2008

two tips:

If you're using an SLR, check for dust on the sensor and clean it, if necessary, after each lens change. The combination of white background and small aperture are very revealing. If you do end up with some dusty images, process them using software that will allow you to apply the same clone/heal settings to each image, since the dust spots will be in the same place (e.g http://www.bibblelabs.com/ is what I use )

Remember to set your white balance once you have you lighting set up.
posted by primer_dimer at 5:55 AM on January 6