Take a look at some great lifestyle product photography ideas and why it may be time to add some to your site. Learn how to increase your sales with these tips.
Do you have a product blog or eCommerce site?
Your success depends largely on the quality of lifestyle product photography on your site. Not only will people decide to make a purchase based on the photos, but they’ll also return the item if it looks different in person.
Your product photos are costing you a lot of money and you may not even realize it. That means you need to get your lifestyle product photos right.
Read on to learn the top tips to improve the quality of your product photos and increase your sales.
The Types of Product Photography
You want to start out in product photography by knowing the common setups and types of product photography.
There’s studio photography, which is what you’ll see on Amazon. These are done with a plain white background from a number of different angles. Amazon gives users the ability to zoom in on products in order to see the product’s details and make a buying decision.
There’s also product lifestyle photography, which showcases the product in action. For example, if you’re showcasing a product like crackers, you can display the crackers on a tray with fruit and cheese.
Another example is if you were showcasing hiking gear. A lifestyle product photo would show hikers in the woods using the product.
You can do lifestyle product photography indoors or you can do these photos outside. It depends on the product, as well as the look and feels your products demand.
Study Other Product Photos
The best way to become a great lifestyle product photographer is to become a student of other photographers. Find out who the top product photographers are and follow them on YouTube or Instagram.
There are also plenty of tutorials that are done by professionals to help you get started with product photography.
As you learn, you’ll want to study other product photos. Find out what it is that you like about them, and what you don’t like about them. You can learn a lot about what makes a good photo just by observing others.
The Equipment
The most common question that beginner photographers ask is, “What kind of gear do I need?”
That’s a good question, but keep in mind that good equipment is pricey. You want to focus on becoming a good photographer first, and then worry about the gear. It doesn’t make sense to spend $5,000 on a camera when you don’t know the basic principles of photography.
You can start out by taking product photos on your phone. That will help you learn the basics of composition and lighting.
Once you get those things down, then get a good camera.
Lighting
Lighting makes or breaks photography. The word photography has Greek roots that mean drawing with light.
It doesn’t matter how amazing and expensive your camera is. If you don’t get your lighting right, you’re not going to have great photos.
With lifestyle product photography, you want to shoot outdoors in natural light as much as possible, or indoors with a space that gets natural light. You can use reflectors to bounce the light and minimize shadows.
When shooting outdoors, avoid shooting at midday because the sun’s light is too direct. Shoot closer to sunrise and sunset for the best lighting.
Tell a Story
Lifestyle product photography is really telling a story about that product. What is it that you want people to remember about that product? How do you want people to feel when they use it?
That’s what you want your image to capture. Your job is to think of the ways that your product will create those feelings in people and emulate them in your images.
Use Props to Enhance the Scene
In most cases, product photography will be used to capture a scene of the product in action. You should use props to enhance it and help you tell the story.
Sometimes, you’ll use models; other times, you may keep it simple. It will depend on the product.
Remember Brand Consistency
Whether you take your own photos or work with a lifestyle product photography company, you want to make sure your brand is consistent across all product photos.
You want to have someone look at the images and know right away that’s your company or brand. That consistency in look and feel increases consumer trust. That, in turn, will increase your company’s revenue.
Post-Production for Perfection
Once you take a bunch of photos and start to learn about photography principles, you can take the next step and learn how to edit your amazing photos.
If you take photos on your phone, or even a point-and-shoot camera, these images are likely to be saved as JPEG files. This is the one drawback of using either one because you don’t have a lot of flexibility to edit JPEG photos.
When you upgrade your camera, take images in RAW + JPEG format. RAW files allow you much more in post-production to make your images perfect.
What should you use to edit your photos? Ideally, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are the best choices. There’s a learning curve to both, so start off in Lightroom and then work your way up to using Photoshop.
These tools will help you bring out the best features of your photos, remove some shadows, and make your products shine.
Make the Most out of Lifestyle Product Photography
There is a correlation between your company’s revenue and the quality of lifestyle product photography on your site. You have to make it appealing and match what the product looks like in real life.
That will increase your sales and cut down on returns. Both of those metrics mean more money for your business. You can take better photos by understanding the types of product photography and focus on telling a story about the product.
From a technical perspective, lighting is the most important thing to get right. The best camera won’t help you if your lighting isn’t good.
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