There are hundreds of recommendations we could provide you to improve the product images in your online store but we have reduced them into a few dozen items and organized them into three categories: planning, creating, and optimizing the images. This will make it easier to follow through the article and remember the recommendations.

  • Stage 1: Planning and preparation – decide what type of images you need and how you can create it
  • Stage 2: Creation – Shooting and editing product images
  • Stage 3: Product image optimization

Stage 1: Planning and preparation – decide what type of images you need and how you can create it

Before taking the camera and begin shooting the products, you need to have a clear idea of the best type of images that can serve your purpose.

Size and dimension of the product image

You need to discuss with your web developer and SEO professional about the appropriate size and dimension (ratio) of the product images. You don’t need images that are too big or small. As the size increases, the page loading time also increases which affects the performance. If the image is small, the website will stretch the images which makes them blurry.

Similarly, shooting and cropping the images with the dimension of the various types of product images on the online store will save a lot of hassle later.

Plain background to shoot images

A clean and simple shot of the product in a plain background (usually white or gray) is a great way to help customers see the details of the product in a very clear way.

Using a plain background color in the product is helpful to create a clean and consistent design for the product catalog pages.

Plan lifestyle product photography

Lifestyle product images show the product in a context where people use the products in a natural way. This is a great way to help customers envision how the product will really look like.

You must include at least one image of the product in this way. However, you need to be very careful if you want to use such images as the featured image for a product because it can make the product catalog pages ugly.

Product videos

Adding a video among the product image gallery can really help the customers to get a better idea about the product. It also increases their confidence.

The video can be a simple 360-degree view of the product or a short demonstration of the use of the product. If you want to know how you can add a video to the product image gallery in the main (single) product page in WooCommerce websites, we have a step-by-step article that will walk you through the process.

Stage 2: Creation – Shooting and editing product images

Although photography is an art with lots of creative freedom and flexibility while shooting, there are some standards and composition rules that will make product photos greater.

Take photos from different viewing angles

When you take photos of the product, think about the customers, and take images from different viewing angles to give the customer a better idea of the product.

Proper lighting

The lighting is the most important aspect in deciding the quality of an image. It’s far more important than the quality of the camera or lens. So, when you take the photos of the products, ensure that the products are well-lit. It will help you to capture crystal clear images of the product with all the intricate details.

You can build a mini DIY studio in your office home with a few hundred dollars. Here are a few creative ideas to set up a mini studio for product photography for eCommerce.

Avoid Ugly Shadows

Shadows can make or break photos. Photos with poor lighting setup create shady shadows that make the images look unprofessional. So, use proper lighting to avoid ugly shadows that break the image.

It doesn’t mean there should be no shadows in the image. In fact, images with zero shadows will look flat and unreal. So, you need to find a balance. If you are using a plain background, you can choose to either include the cast shadow or reflection on the surface. You can add this during the post-processing.

Here are a few examples to give you an idea of bad shadows and good shadows in eCommerce product images.

  • Use white as the plain background color for products.
  • Keep your camera steady.
  • Take lots of photos and choose the best few.
  • You can also shoot product images with your iPhone or Galaxy 20. Expensive cameras are not required.
  • Take images that will help the customers to feel the textures of the product.
  • Create graphically generated images to give a clear picture of the product.

Post-processing

Even seasoned photography professionals can’t shoot the perfect web-ready photographs that can be directly used on eCommerce websites. You will always need to post-process and retouch the images.

You can use the standard image editing tools like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom to get the images the way you want.

If you are looking for a free image editing tool, I would recommend Pixlr and PicMonkey.

Ensure consistency in featured product images

<Ensuring the consistency in the lighting, angle, and size of the featured product images for all products will help you to keep the product catalog page clean and tidy.

When you are using plain backgrounds for the products, ensure that all images have the same color.

The alignment and positioning of the product inside the background also affect consistency.

Similarly, if you decide to add the caste shadow or reflection, you should use the same style, angle, color across all images.

Stage 3: Product image optimization

eCommerce websites generally contain lots of images. It reduces the page loading speed. Good page loading speed is essential for a good user experience. So, you need to reduce the impact of images on the page loading speed to the maximum.

Compress images

There are tons of free online JPEG compressing tools that will help you to reduce the image size to a great extent without losing the quality. Make use of them to reduce the file size of your images. Here are a few great tools we recommend.

Compressing product images will help you to reduce the total page size on your eCommerce website significantly.

Add ALT tags

Most eCommerce websites don’t add the ALT tag content for images on their website because they think it is not useful. Customers may not see the ALT tag content but it is used by search engines to understand this particular image. By helping the search engines like Google to understand the particular image, you can improve your SEO.

Better Product Images = More Sales

Images have the potential to make or break the visual design of a website. It affects the impression of the customers and conversion, especially on eCommerce websites. On eCommerce websites, customers heavily depend on the product images when deciding if it is the right product you need. So, you need to put special care to creating images that elevate the overall design of your online store and help the customers. We hope that the tips we provided above were helpful to you.