Tag: product photography pricing

Amazon Product Photography Trends to Watch Out for in 2022

Product images play a crucial part in your listings’ success on eCommerce websites, especially ones like Amazon, where your fiercest competition is present. The main image is what attracts customers to your product, and it needs to be extremely attractive with a white background so that one only sees the product. However, apart from the main image, the other product images need to look good too. And a good product photography studio with experience in shooting the latest Amazon photography trends will help you accomplish this goal. Here’s what you can look forward to in your product images for 2022.

Amazon Product Photography Trends

3D Product Visuals

These days businesses are trying to get more creative with presenting their products on Amazon – the world’s biggest online shopping site to help make their products stand out from the competition. Capturing sharp, clear, and well-focused images to attract customers will not do the trick anymore. If you wish to be ahead of your competitors on Amazon in 2022, you should try out adding 3D effects and rendering to your images.
With 3D and AR entering the mainstream, customers can expect more immersive images, thus getting a clear picture of the product. 3D images are believed to create confidence and better control for customers while shopping online, allowing them to visualize and interact with products like they would in a real store.

360 Degree Product Views

360 Degree Product view

Nowadays, consumers want to see the product from possibly every angle before making a purchase, just like they would in a physical store. 360 Degree views of products help them take a look and know everything about their physical appearance. In the last couple of years, 360-degree photographs have become highly popular on social media and are expected to be a forerunner on shopping sites like Amazon too. Although many retailers on Myntra showcase their fashion merchandise and perfume product photography with a 360-degree angle, the trend is soon taking off with other non-fashion-related products.
This photography trend is set to stay for a long time, with more and more brands taking advantage of the technology. Adding it to your marketing strategy in 2022 is a must, especially for larger products, to ensure you are at par with the competition.

Explainer Videos

The concept of product videos is not something new, especially on Amazon, where sellers share explainer videos about their products and their functionalities. However, since consumers nowadays have been rapidly switching to video content than a written description, sellers may now have to include complete descriptions in their videos to attract new customers.

Since the latest technological developments have allowed videos to be more compact, these can be delivered through a variety of platforms. This trend has had a domino effect on product photographers, forcing them to enhance their skills in videography if they wish to attract big brands. For brands, it means they need to find photographers with experience in creating attractive videos for showcasing their products on Amazon.

Mobile-Friendly Photographs

Mobile friendly Photography

The transition from cameras and laptops to mobile phones has changed how product photography is done nowadays. Yes, you still need that sharp DSLR image for your products on Amazon, but now they must be vertically captured for ease of viewing on mobiles. Since mobiles have a limited screen space, photographers have had to adapt and ensure the picture is vertically-oriented and compact. Making Amazon product photography mobile-optimized is a need of the hour, and 2022 is certainly going to see this trend being followed by every small and large business. In fact, for sellers’ convenience, companies can also click images through the Amazon sellers’ app and edit them a bit to ensure they are completely mobile optimized. However, these images certainly don’t beat those created by a professional photographer.

Minimalist Editing

Gone are the days when every product image was highly edited before publishing it on eCommerce sites. Consumers nowadays want authenticity in product photographs, and this can only be accomplished through presenting original pictures. It means that your product photo studio must get the images right during the photo shoot so that only minimalist editing is required to preserve their authenticity.

Summing Up

Staying in tune with the latest photography industry trends is the key to staying successful in Amazon product photography. Whether you are a company selling products, or are a photography studio, adopting what’s new in the industry and constantly innovating to satisfy the end consumers will help you stay ahead of the game. So, don’t forget to incorporate the above trends in 2022. If you are looking for some amazing photoshoots at reasonable prices for your business, reach out to productphoto.com – a place where experienced photographers can bring out the best in your product by presenting it on Amazon photography, e-commerce website, and print media.

7 Amazing Tips For Your Makeup Product Photography

Makeup product photography, as the name suggests, is photographing makeup products. The photoshoot aims to make the products look extremely appealing so that they become a success in the market.

Since the beauty industry is booming right now, makeup product photographers are extremely in demand. However, this requires you to display skills and abilities better than your counterparts.

Here are 7 amazing tips that can make your makeup product shoot a huge success:

Get Clear About the Photograph use

Get Clear About the Photograph use

Whether you are shooting photographs for your blog or a client, you need to get a clear picture of the use of photographs. Where will the pictures get displayed? What is the product photography price? Are these going to be on a billboard or a part of a social media campaign? This will help you in crafting creative ideas to help this makeup line to stand out from others.

You also need to understand the type of your customer. This will help you to better connect your products based on the socio-economic status of the customers. If the targeted audience has a high spending capacity, then you can connect makeup to royalty.

Make the Best use of Lights

Make the Best use of Lights

Lighting plays a vital role in capturing high-quality product photographs. Your photographs need to be eye-catchy and yet balanced. By using vivid lighting tricks you can energize the picture, projecting a likewise image of the makeup to the customers.

Try natural light if the mood of the shoot allows you to. You can also use different light tricks to hide reflections or highlight certain spots.

Also, be cautious while using flash on makeup products. The shiny and glittery containers will reflect the light and result in botched photos. The same is true in the Jewelry photography service. You can always add another light component to compensate for the need for flash.

Get These Right: Theme and Tone

Get These Right: Theme and Tone

The tone and theme of your photographs together influence the mood of the viewer.

The tone highlights the value of the brand. Usually, the brands follow a pre-decided tone associated with their products from the start. This happens because that tone is now part of their brand identity. If you are working with a newer brand then you can suggest certain tones that are unique and appealing.

The theme projects a story, with the makeup products as the central character. The themes can be based on an ongoing issue or an upcoming festival. Make sure that your theme blends effortlessly with the tone of the photographs.

Select the Perfect Background

Select the Perfect Background

The background highlights the essence of the product. Based on the aim of the shoot or the colors of the makeup, you can decide the background that goes well with them. Just make sure that the background does not steal away the charm of the photograph and instead elegantly highlights them.

Time for 360 Degree Photography

Time for 360 Degree Photography

Simple rear shots have now become boring and do not turn eyes anymore. You can make your photographs more exciting by experimenting with different camera angles. You have to break the conventional norms and let your creative side take over.

Suspend the makeup products to the stand and click mid-air photos. Or click diagonal images to give an unusual feel. Try new techniques and make use of every angle to get a refined range of images to select from.

Capture Makeup in Action

 

Products in action invoke different emotions in the viewers as compared to stationary ones. Likewise, vibrant products like makeup are better highlighted when caught in action. They get infused with life and form a much better connection.

You can rely on your creative ideas to design the kind of action that you want to try. For example, you can catch images of dripping makeup for an aesthetic appeal. Here the right frame and background are crucial to derive an exemplary result.

Emphasize the Details

Emphasize on the Details

Photographs play a key role in influencing sales on e-commerce websites. Customers need to see the products as they look in real life. This requires you to capture even the minute details for Amazon product photos.

Don’t leave it for the edit

Don't leave it for the edit

Since makeup photography involves capturing tiny objects, the preservation of even minuscule details is highly crucial. Here, the attitude of relying on edits to make the picture better should be abandoned on the first thought. Change the light components, props, background, or likewise settings if you plan on editing them. It is important to get everything right during the shoot itself. You need to preserve the details and avoid over-editing, which can kill the desired impact of the photographs.

Mistakes to Avoid When Shooting on White Background

White backgrounds provide backdrops for your portrait and commercial photographs. To focus the viewer’s attention on only the product and avoid any background distractions, high-key, or white backdrop photography is used. Whether it’s the ‘infinite white background’ effect or the up-close shots, you can ace them with the right skills and enough practice.

You don’t have to spend hours fixing your light and subject placement if you avoid the following mistakes and learn from the mentioned tips.

Avoid Cloth Canvases and Muslins

It is not advised to choose cloth canvases over paper. The seamless look that photographers aim for during product photography ecommerce might get distorted due to the cloth crinkling up. Even with your best efforts, you cannot get all the wrinkles and creases out of your scope.

A paper background is comparatively cheaper and can be stored easily. You can roll it up when done; it is wrinkle-free, heavier, and easier to tear. Paper backdrops don’t need any ironing or steaming before the shoot and they are uniformly colored thus reducing your editing and post-production hassle.

Maintain Space

Lighting the subject and the background separately is important. 7-10 feet is the advisable distance for subject placement in front of the white backdrop. If the distance is not enough, the light intending to fall on the background will inevitably spill onto the subject as well. You do not need a halo effect, poor backlight, or the subject to look flat in your photo.

Lighting in two different stages is a mark of perfection. Light your subject and the background separately to prevent unnecessary shadows and hotspots in your photograph. Maintaining space and light during professional product photography studio prevents shadows from appearing in the background, thus giving a clean finish to your clicks.

Size Matters

When filming smaller subjects or taking close-ups or portraits, small backdrops work wonders. They are easier to set up and cost less. They efficiently fulfil their purpose of filling up the little background space available. But, full-body shots or larger objects require extended backdrops that sprawl across the floor, and the subject can be placed on them.

To make the set-up process handy, don’t hesitate to use clamps, tape, and pins to hold your background together. Plexiglass is your friend while photographing models and heavy products. Place a thin plexiglass layer on the ground over your paper backdrop to prevent any damage. Plexiglass also helps you to solve the depth problem as it enables slight floor shadows and prevents the infamous ‘floating effect’. A small investment like buying plexiglass can improve your outputs considerably and increase your product photography prices.

Aim for a Well-Exposed Background

Your camera’s screen doesn’t tell you the level of exposure of a photograph. A white background product photography requires bright light to appear white in color otherwise you’ll have a dull grey background. Overexposing the backdrop without mangling with the subject’s light settings gives a bright and presentable white background. The histogram feature is ideal for this purpose. Almost every camera has a built-in histogram under the information section.

A histogram displays the pixel brightness in the form of a graph. The range varies from zero to 255. With the majority of your values clustered towards the right, you’ll have an over-exposed image in your hands. Whereas the under-exposed photographs have left-clustered values. For a balanced and well-exposed click, you need the majority of your pixel-brightness values in the center. Also, the zebra stripe function, though a bit complex, can be used for adjusting the exposure and lighting for your next click.

Outdoors can be Difficult

Flags and reflectors are a must while shooting outdoors. The Sun is a relatively powerful light source and hence it might add complications to the photo set-up. Though natural light works well, studio lights allow control. Make sure the light is stationary and is not changing frequently to make stationary flags and diffusion effects work. Keep in mind that shade and clouds will help you to avoid overexposure.

You’ll soon be a PRO (Conclusion)

To make excellent product photography your premier trait, you need to work on the minute details at the start. White backgrounds due to their versatility and multiple uses are ideal for photography. By carefully treading through the process, you can develop an excellent product portfolio. Avoid the above mistakes and learn from the tips mentioned, to mint out crystal clear and commercially appropriate product and model photographs on a white background.

6 Ways to Adapt Your Amazon Selling Strategy During Covid 19

As the world grapples with the deadly Covid-19 outbreak, Governments, industries, businesses, etc. are updating their policies to survive in these testing times. In particular, due to fluctuation in customer demand, restrictions from authorities, delays in logistics, etc. Amazon sellers are facing manifold issues that are affecting their businesses significantly.

Here, we list out the top six ways to adapt your business strategy to stay relevant and protect your business:

Amazon Selling Strategies During Covid

Let’s Discuss Each Point in Detail

1. Create New Supply Chains

The outbreak of this deadly disease reinforces the importance of door-to-door service and foot traffic for the success of a business. Although it might appear like as waste of time, effort, and money in opening up new sales channels, it will surely increase the coverage of your business.

By creating new supply chains, you will be able to capture untapped markets and locations to increase the awareness of your business. Broadening your sales stream takes your business to places where customers are buying at the moment. Additionally, by catering your products and services to more customers, you generate more revenue.

2. Align Your Business With the New Regulations

The new guidelines allow Amazon sellers to deal with only essential goods and services like groceries, medical supplies, health supplements, baby products, pet supplies, PPE, sanitizers, face masks, etc. Due to the ongoing nationwide lockdown, every customer requires these high-demand commodities.

Since you are already a trusted seller on Amazon, it might be a good time to start dealing with these essentials. All you need to do is update your profile and add the relevant Amazon product photos.
amazon product photography

3. Create Engaging Content

Due to the ongoing lockdown, as most of your customers are staying at home and shopping online, you must use creative and relevant content to attract them. Apart from creating your brand awareness, valuable content can help in driving your sales as well.

Whether you are dealing in essential commodities or not, you can expand your customer base by leveraging valuable content. A simple yet efficient way is to contact a professional product photography studio to create content for Amazon as well as other social media channels. By connecting with your customers through relevant content for your products and services, you build a long-lasting community for your business.

4. Review Your Marketing Tactics

A temporary pause in business gives you a perfect opportunity to assess your marketing strategy. You can review your campaign’s performance and chalk out the plan for future investments.

As most of your clients continue to work from home, you might want to cut down on promotional messages and emails. While it might be an effective marketing strategy in normal circumstances, receiving regular mailers can be quite irritating at times like these.
amazon product photography

5. Re-calibrate Your Ad Investment

If you are using Amazon Ads to boost your sales, you will have to review the ad spending as well. If you deal with non-essential consumer products, you will be hardly getting any customers. Similarly, if you sell essential items, it will be hard to manage the inventory due to the surge in customers’ demands. In both of these scenarios, rather than promoting your business, your ads will harm it instead.

6. Train your Workforce

You can utilize this lockdown time to train and improve the professional caliber of your employees. Even if you have the most talented and trained workforce, now is the perfect time to cross-train them. Apart from the core skills for their job responsibilities, you can teach your employees the extra skills required to take up additional duties at work.

Cross-training allows you to create a backup of your employees without recruiting additional professionals. For example, you can train your software developer in cosmetic product photography.

By training the hidden qualities of your existing workers, you encourage teamwork and better utilization of your workforce. As a result, you create an efficient work environment and better returns on your investment.

Making Most of the Downtime:

Covid-19 is changing every aspect of an e-commerce business. While some changes will be favorable, some will be challenging. In the post-Covid-19 era, business requirements and strategies are going to be quite different.

For a business to survive in such a situation, it must recalibrate its strategies and respond accordingly. The points above give you some tips to adapt your Amazon selling strategy in these testing times. By utilizing these tips, you will be able to face the challenges head-on and come up with a thriving business.

At Product Photo, we aim to provide the best Amazon product photos at affordable rates. Get in touch for a customized product photography packages with a fast turnaround time to maximize your online potential.

 

Top 5 Emerging Photography Trends to follow in 2022

2022 is almost near its end; it’s time to start making plans for the approaching ever. Ground-breaking technological shifts are happening so quickly that before we know it, a new trend comes in and passes away. New patterns and styles emerge every now and then, and we feel the need to keep up with all of them, which is not very possible.

Trends come and go. Keeping up with them is essential, but jumping right into them blindly isn’t. Whether you’re a travel photographer or an Amazon product photography service provider, new trends in photography are sure to leave you overwhelmed and confused.

So to take away the confusion and only serve you with what’s important, here are 5 photography trends to keep an eye on, in 2022.

Photography Trends

Let’s Discuss Each Point in Detail

1. DSLRs are Becoming a Niche

Having a big camera to be a better photographer is a myth long forgotten. Smartphones and mirrorless cameras are now on a roll, and the technology has advanced so much that you do not need a DSLR to take breathtaking shots. These devices are smaller, lighter, and easier to carry and do almost the same job as a big camera. So, this is the time they get replaced. DSLRs are not going away, but, it’s just a matter of preference and ease.

Whatever the type of photography you do or require, be it wildlife photography or jewelry product photography, your smartphone is capable of doing a fantastic job if you are the know-how.

product shoot photographer

2. Videos are Taking Over the Photographs

Moving on the same lines, advancements in technology now allow us to take high-quality videos on almost every smartphone. The attention spans have now reduced to a fraction of a second, and getting someone to be interested in your pictures is a difficult job. On the other hand, videos do the same job, but in the form of a story. People are more likely to be engaged.

This emerging trend can also be seen in e-commerce portals, where websites are now including videos of their products in use. Including videos wherever possible is visually attractive and engaging.

3. Candid Shots and Not Portraits

2020 was the year of portraits and sensual looks straight into the camera. 2022 is going to be the year of real, candid, natural shots that people can relate to. Authenticity and originality are what people are looking for now. Photographers need to step out of their spaces and click natural, candid stills to grab the attention of the audience. Even when shooting inside in artificial light, the goal will be to come up with a more natural light look. Also, 2022 is going to give space to more brightly looking and vibrant pictures, as opposed to the dull, underexposed images.

4. Vertical Photography

It is estimated that by 2022, three-quarters of the total internet traffic is going to be coming from mobile users. That means, everything you post online, be it beauty product photography or stills from your tour to the Grand Canyon, it’s all going to be viewed on vertical mobile screens. To keep up with this trend, photographers have to keep in mind that your images and website are all mobile-friendly.

professional product photos

5. Other Upcoming Photography Trends:

Here is a list of a few more trends that are going to steal the limelight in 2022. (And a few that are going to fade away):

  • The technology-obsessed people also want to stay in touch with nature. It is not just natural scenic photography; it is about nature around them. Introducing and highlighting the natural aspects of your product or service is going to be a great way to make a connection with your audience.
  • Disruptive Expressions: Pictures that speak louder than words, and cut through the noise with their loud messages are going to be loved.
  • When Drones were introduced to the photography world, they were far out of reach of most photographers’ budgets. But, now they are available for half the price of a phone. Every industry, more or less, has already made use of drones. This is one trend that is going to fade away in 2022.
  • In 2022, one of the main subjects of outdoor photography is going to be product photography. Whatever the product you sell, the images clicked outdoor in the more natural environment will overpower the ones clicked indoors.

It’s a Wrap!

Product photography pricing will rise, the way pictures were clicked will change, and what was in trend yesterday will hold no value tomorrow. That’s how trends change. Keeping up with these trends is important to keep your business and brand going. Also, staying ahead of the trends will give you an edge over the competition.

Top 5 Product Photography A/B Tests To Run

When people shop for stuff offline, there is the element of interaction with the product that influences the buying decision. Consumers see, touch, hold, and feel the product before they decide whether or not they’d like to make the purchase. 

This interaction is unavailable in the digital world. The closest an e-commerce store owner can come to this interactivity is through product pictures.

In this visual world, we live in, the attention of shoppers automatically gravitates first towards the pictures of your product. Only if they like what they see that they’d be interested in knowing more about your product, and probably, make the purchase too.

Not just the quality of the product photos, but even the presentation impacts the buying decisions. A/B testing of the pictures is an effective way to understand what does and does not work for your online store.

Here are 5 popular A/B tests for product photographs that you can consider to optimize conversions-

A/B tests for product photographs

Let’s Discuss Each Point in Detail

1. Model vs. Ghost/Invisible Mannequin vs. Flat Lay

If you are selling something like apparel or accessories online, you can present your products in many different ways. Some stores hire models, some use invisible mannequins, and others just lay the products flat for the pictures. Each of these methods has its pros and cons.

For instance, while hiring models can be expensive, the products offer a better editorial and relatable feel when an actual model is wearing them. Similarly, while flat-lay product photography requires a cost-efficient and simple setup, products might look distorted if they are not styled properly.

Consider factors like your product category, the online platform where you are selling your product, and pricing product photography while experimenting with these options.

2. Pictures vs. Videos

The next A/B test you can consider is using product images or videos. As compared to static images, videos tend to drive more engagement. But for smaller online stores with limited hosting resources, video content would mean more storage space that might not be very cost-efficient.

Video shooting will also be an added expense. But for larger e-commerce stores or if you are using online platforms like Amazon, you should definitely consider using product videos for more engagement. A combination of static images with product video works best.

product photography

3. Zoom or No Zoom

Next on this list are product pictures with and without zoom. There are several product categories like apparel, jewelry, accessories, etc. where consumers would like to zoom into the images to understand the product better.

But the same is not essential if you are selling something like perfume or daily-use products. But note that if you do want to add the zoom feature, your product pictures should be of very high quality.

4. Using or Not Using Customer-Generated Product Photos

If you aim to increase conversions, one A/B test you can consider is using and not using customer-generated product photos. Platforms like Amazon do allow the customers to upload their product photos. This is known to work as social proof for the product and adds more authenticity.

If you are not allowing user-generated photos currently, note the conversions of your best-selling product before enabling the option. Track the conversions after a month to know whether the user-generated photos work for you.

product photos

5. Auxiliaries or No Auxiliaries

Brands like IKEA are known to make excellent use of this strategy. For instance, the product picture of a dining table often features a dining room full of products from IKEA. The goal of this strategy is to advertise other products along with the product you are trying to sell.

While this might not be a great option if you are working on Amazon product photos, if you have your e-commerce store and an extensive range of products, auxiliary products can help you advertise multiple products with a single product photo.

Making the Best Use of Product Photos to Optimize Conversions

Product photos significantly affect the buying decision of the customers. Optimize them in the best way possible for improved customer engagement. Unfortunately, there is no single strategy to make the photos work for every online store.

It is with the help of A/B testing that you can figure out what works for your products and online store. Alternatively, you can consult a reputed product photography service to get high-quality custom photographs that are in line with the global standards and positively impact your e-commerce conversions.