Want to make product photos for your website? This is how you do it professionally

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6 years ago

You need photos of your own products. The time we could only use a description is long behind us. At least 1 beautiful photo is required and preferably even more!

But how do you manage that?

In this article I will take you by the hand and tell you how you can easily obtain a good result. Hopefully your photos will be worth your while and your conversion will raise to the roofs (remember there are no ceilings)

The preparations

What do you need?

A photo camera, preferably one that you can operate manually, such as an upper-class compact camera, an SLR or a system camera.
A solid tripod is indispensable.
A roll of white paper.
Lighting, such as daylight lamps. 2 Lamps is the minimum.
A computer or laptop.
Software to edit the photos.
A space to work undisturbed.

To work

If you have collected all the stuff, you can start making the setup. Depending on the size of your product, you need a back wall where you can attach your paper. Make sure that this runs over the ground with a nice curve. You can also do this on a kitchen table, then you have a more convenient working height

TIP: Clean the product carefully. Better cleaning now than correcting afterwards. This also applies to the background; the cleaner the better.

Then place the lights left and right of your product. Turn them on and see how the light falls on your product. Try to put them in such a way that you have few shadows. Do not place the lamps too far away from your product, because you will lose light intensity very quickly.

If you are satisfied with the setup, you put down your tripod for the product with the camera on it. Set the height, usually it is nice to take this from above at an angle between 15 and 30 degrees. But of course this depends on your product.

TIP: Do not use wide angle, because then your product may look unnatural because of the distortion. Use moderate zoom. (Approximately 70 mm converted to a small image).

Now you are ready to take the picture. If you have not previously worked with manual settings, it's time to get the manual from your camera to figure out how to manually set the following values. This usually works with the M mode on your camera.

ISO: set it to 100 if possible or as low as possible, not automatically.
Aperture: Choose an aperture between F8 to F11.
Shutter speed: You need to adjust this to the exposure. For example start with 1 / 30th.
White balance: If you use daylight lamps, you can set the white balance on your camera for daylight or a value around 5500 Kelvin. If that does not work then you can best leave it on automatically.
By choosing these values manually you know which settings you need for the next product and / or the following photos.

Now make a test photo by clicking on the release button. Check the example on the back. If the photo is too dark, you have to extend the shutter speed to, for example, 1 / 15th. It may even be longer, because the camera is on a tripod. If the photo is too light, set the shutter speed faster.

If you have adjusted the camera correctly and the lighting is good then you can take the pictures. In this case, use the self-timer so that you do not move the camera when you press the shutter button.

Now take the photos and put them on your PC.

The post-processing

The next step to achieve a sparkling end result is editing the photo. Of course you try to achieve the best possible result with the taking of the photo, but usually there are some adjustments needed to achieve a good result.

To do this you need tools. There is a huge selection of photo editing programs. I work a lot with photoshop, I know their are there are expensive programs. But there are also enough alternatives to edit your photos that are affordable or even free.

I realize that there are many roads leading to Rome. You can expect different and better results from a professional product photographer. He has the resources, experience and knowledge for that.

The procedure described here is a signpost for those who like to try it themselves with relatively simple means. The results may also be achieved in a different way, but I hope that you have explained a simple working method.