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The Must-Have Shots for Your Products

It’s no secret: the best way to showcase your products is through great images and photos. Whether on your website, in an online store, in print products or advertising; e-commerce without photos is hard to do.

Product photography is more than just pointing a camera towards your products and starting to shoot. (There are professional photographers in this field for a reason.) Product photos come in various styles and for various purposes. Whether for daily use or special cases. It is important to know and understand the differences between the types of product photography. For the best possible presentation of your products.

Today we show you the most common types of product photos with images that we have edited for the Simba Dickie Group GmbH. We will tell you what is important so that you are well prepared for the must-have photos of your products.

Must-Have: The most common types of product photos

Single Shot

This is probably the most used product photo. The single shot shows one individual product and is perfect to put your product in the spotlight. Single shots are ideal for online shops and marketplaces, product pages, catalogues and to add them as clippings into advertisements.

Group Shot

With a group shot, you can showcase more than just one product. They are great for product kits, bundles or collections where it is important to not only show the individual pieces but all products that belong together. This type of product photo is also ideal for different product sizes. Whenever possible, arrange multiple products or individual parts in a way that takes the proportions into account. Group photos are often seen on product pages, in online shops, social media, and advertisements.

Scale Shot

Sometimes it is difficult to imagine the actual size of a product. Scale shots help to get a better idea of the actual product size, for example by comparing one product with other items. Select suitable items, this increases credibility and helps to classify the product correctly. It becomes even more precise if the product dimensions are subsequently integrated into the photo.

Detail Shot

Many products have small details and features that are difficult or even impossible to see in “normal” photos. You can make them visible with a detailed shot. Detail photos not only highlight certain product details and features, but also give your customers the best possible chance to fully understand what they are buying. On product pages, in online shops and marketplaces, detailed photos are a good addition to individual and group photos. Good lighting and often even a macro lens are a must to get crystal-clear images.

Component Shot

If a product has additional accessories or consists of several components, it is advisable to use component shots to show the individual components. This will give your customers a better understanding of what is included in the product or what would be a suitable addition. Be sure to make it clear if the components are part of the purchased product or additional add-ons that must be purchased separately.

Lifestyle Shot

Lifestyle shots are great for adding an emotional touch to your product presentation and for telling a story about the product. The photos show the product in action and are often taken with models or created by composing clippings and image backgrounds together. A real-life setting shows how your customers use the product in their daily life. Lifestyle shots catch the eye and make products appear more personal. This makes them perfect for social media and advertising, as well as a great addition to product pages.

Packaging Shot

Customers are not only interested in your product, but also in the packaging. It may seem a little over the top at first, but packaging is part of a product and part of a consistent shopping experience. Especially when it comes to beautiful branded packaging. Be it a box, a bag or even just a label; show your packaging. At the same time, you give your customers the certainty that the product they have bought will reach them safely.

Good-to-Have: Product Shooting requirements

Now that you know the different types of product photos, let’s look at how to achieve and maintain a consistent look in your product photos.

This works best if you summarise general requirements and guidelines for product shots in a style guide. This not only helps you, but is also a huge help when working with external photo studios and image processing. The style guide should contain everything important that has to do with your product photos and explain how they should ideally look like.

Also take a look at our FAQ about product photography and product images with many valuable tips.

Your advantages

– All product images are consistent.

– Maintaining a consistent look and feel.

– Reduction of complicated instructions for product shootings or further processing.

– Enables easy and quick further processing.

– Reduces the image editing effort and the need for corrections.

– Saves time and money overall.

– Ensures a consistent and professional appearance in all e-commerce channels.

– Increases trust and in the end sales.

What should be included?

How extensive your requirements for product shots are depends both on the products themselves and on what is particularly important to you in your product photos and image editing. We have put together a few topics.

– Types of product photos

– Perspective and Angle

– Surroundings, decorations and accessories

– Special features, e.g. show products in action, integrate additional explanations

– Capture settings such as blur

– Contrast and colours

– Lighting mood and settings

– Requirements for photo shootings with models, e.g. gender, age, overall appearance, hair & make-up, clothing, alone or in groups, setting, product integration

In addition to specifications for the photos, requirements for the subsequent image editing and retouching are also useful. This includes, for example, information on:

File naming, file format and file size. As well as image size information.

Image enhancements & image retouching such as exposure and white balance corrections. Adjustments of brightness, contrast and tone. Image sharpening and perspective corrections. Align products and crop images. Removal of dust, scratches and other disturbing elements.

Colour Correction: Accurate colour reproduction, removing colour casts, smoothing images, adjusting hue, saturation and contrast.

Recolouring: Colour masks for changing the colour of individual image areas in order to display the product in different colour and design variants.

Clipping & Alpha Masking: For example clipping on a white background.

Composing: For example, composing with accessories or in lifestyle scenes.

Shadow effects: Natural shadow, drop shadow or reflection shadow (mirror effect).

Beauty retouch: Adjust skin tones. Optimisation of skin, eyes, hair and teeth. Natural image retouching and digital make-up.

As well as extras such as 360 degree images or CGI images and modelling.

We put your products in the spotlight!

With professional image editing for product photos of the highest quality.
For more information, samples and detailed prices download our e-commerce & product images portfolio.