How to create beautiful product photos with few resources
Laia Ordoñez
23/06/2015
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When start selling online, it is common that product photos scare us a little bit. And we all know that, on the Internet, the first impression is very important. Any online shop has just a few seconds to seduce and persuade an user to stay and keep surfing on your website, and one of the key at this moment it is the quality and attractiveness of the images used. But do not panic: even if you are not an expert photographer or have an excellent photographic stuff, you can create beautiful product photos with few resources. Today, we share some tips and tricks that can help you to create product photos to remember.
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1. Create beautiful product photos: sunlight
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One of your biggest allies when creating beautiful product pictures it is a great camera, neither huge LED lights, nor a very elaborated style, but something as simple as sunlight. And it is this sunlight, in addition to illuminate the photographed objects with a unique transparency and get all their details, provides perfect transparency, clean and warm feeling to any image. To make product photos with sunlight you do not need a glass window from the roof to the floor: you simply find the place of your home, studio or office with more natural light, and grab it at the right time! Almost all houses let sunlight pass through at a specific time of the day;determine which is that time and set your small photography home set on a table close to that light focus. The rest is a piece of cake!
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2. Create beautiful product photos: reflectors and diffusers
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Do not panic: we will not speak to you of photographic or professional reflectors and diffusers , but material for crafts and objects in your house that you can use for this purpose. Reflectors are used to capture the maximum of natural light as possible and make it bounce on the object being photographed, and diffusers are used to spread the light and make it homogeneous, so that it falls like a veil over the object and avoid shadows and marked contrasts. What you may not know is that all that you can get it with a zero or minimal investment. To get homemade reflectors, use expanded polystyrene sheets, white sheets, white cardboard cartons lined with foil or other objects with white surface you have at home. For more homemade diffusers, you just need white clothing or curtains, even those that you have hung in the window! Once you have these items,be sure to place reflectors around the object to be illuminated and opposed to light bulb, and the diffuser between the light bulb and the object to be illuminated.
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3. Create beautiful product photos: designed backgrounds
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Sure you have in mind a lot of super beautiful vintage or romantic product photos where product is shown on a wooden background... and surely more than once you have wondered that someday you would have a wooden table like that one to make photos as well. Because you do not need it! On the internet you will find textures of wooden boards of all styles to download. You only have to print them in large sheets, place the object to photograph on them, and frame your photos avoiding the board ends to be seen.Then keep your sheet of wooden boards and you can use it as many times as you want. This trick is, of course, valid for any background or texture.
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4. Create beautiful product photos: styling
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Apart from some basic rules of composition, such as the rule of thirds, something that will help bring your product photos to the next level is styling. A product photo can be completely different depending on how you have the central object and the elements that go with it. Some ideas to remember are:
- Give the maximum prominence to the central object: Do not put it together with other objects that may give rise to confusion about which object is the protagonist of the photo.
- Let air between the central object and the photo box: Do not fill all photo with the central object or other objects with important presence; make sure that your central object is more or less isolated and that there is empty space around. This will get their features be better appreciated at a glance.
- Use an image enhacer for your central object: place the product on an object that allows to raise it or make it stand above everything that appears in the photo. For example, a photo frame, or a wooden letter or a kitchen table... There are many options, and all are already in your home.
- Combine colors adequately: the central object, the ensalzador, props objects and the background must be coordinated to any technique that gives good results. The colors that combine well are the different shades of the same color, similar colors together (of the same type: cold/hot) and complementary colors.
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5. Create beautiful product photos: focus
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A resource that can help you much to focus attention on the central object in a product photo is the focus-soft focus dichotomy. It is a fairly broken resource, because it looks great and is very useful... but how to do it? If you have an réflex camera, you can get a smaller depth of field – what you need to focus is only the subject of interest – playing with the focal length and the aperture of your camera. But even if you have a compact camera, you can also get it! The easiest way is to use the automatic functions of portrait, close-up, or kitchen, focusing the most outstanding object of the image by blurring the rest, and with a such a good result that will surprise you.
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6. Create beautiful photos: the Rule of Thirds
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Last but not least, it is very important to keep in mind The Rule of Thirds. We would like to share with you this interesting in-depth 1000+ word guide called The Rule of Thirds.
In this guide, a deeper look at the rule of thirds is taken, first defining it, then explaining how and why it works. It examines examples of the rule of third in action along the way, and even offer up some instances in which this rule should be broken.
Head photo | Fotolia.