Complete Guide for Editing Product Images for eCommerce Websites
Many photographers continue to wonder why learning how to edit product photos is so important. Wouldn’t shooting in a professional studio with the right camera settings be sufficient to produce high-quality images?
In fact, a good eCommerce image should depict the product as accurately as possible. Online shoppers are unable E-Commerce Photo Editing to touch or physically see the product. They don’t want to be disappointed after receiving the item and discovering that it differs from the online image because they are purchasing the item “blindly.” The most well-known online retailers only offer products with images that:
Include accurate color.
have a white or transparent background
Reflect the object’s true appearance by using strong shadows and reflections. Display only unused, new items.
Learn all the tips and tricks for editing product photos in this guide, and observe how well-edited product shots can increase the online sales of your clients’ businesses or even your own.
1. Remove the background for a more polished appearance
The first piece of advice you will find when reading articles on how to edit photos for eCommerce is to remove backgrounds from these images, even if they are already barely noticeable.
As a result, you should always photograph against a white background because doing so will make background removal much easier later. Additionally, when the background is removed, the file size is decreased and the loading time of an online store’s pages is accelerated.
You can choose any other background that complements the web store’s theme or main color by deciding to remove the background in a product photo editor. This helps the pages and the products on them to look cohesively designed. A transparent background is also unobtrusive and concentrates attention solely on the object.
In addition to achieving a clean appearance, background removal reduces minor flaws like protruding hairs or threads. Depending on the colors used in the design of the store and the inspiration for the product page design, you can either leave the background transparent or replace it with a solid background of any color once it has been removed.
2. Employ well-known product photo editors
Use Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom to have the best product photo editing tools at your disposal. Millions of professional photographers and everyday users use these high-quality software products on a daily basis all over the world.
There is no more complete software available to edit both Magento product images and any image for eCommerce needs. The time and effort spent learning these programs will pay off in the form of excellent editing abilities for product photography.
Try GIMP, a free and open-source Photoshop alternative that is just as capable for editing images for eCommerce if you aren’t yet willing to purchase Photoshop. Many amateurs and beginners choose Pixlr because it is user-friendly for beginners and has some of the sophisticated Photoshop capabilities.
Numerous users also laud Canva and PicMonkey for having both web and mobile versions. Google’s Snapseed, Fotor, and VSCO are a few other good smartphone product photo editors.
3. To preserve colors, set the image profile to sRGB.
The color of the item might be one of the primary factors in someone choosing to buy it when shopping online. Just picture the person’s reaction if they received the item and discovered that the shade is off. In fact, because PC screens and web browsers have different color profiles, the same color may appear differently on a PC screen than it does on a smartphone.
This is taken into account by professional product photographers, who convert their.jpeg files to the SRGB color profile. Pictures in sRGB will be more vivid than pictures in Adobe RGB because browsers have been modified to understand sRGB colors.
The colors in pictures will appear distorted if you stick with AdobeRGB or another format, which will increase the number of unhappy customers.
4. Add Depth with Shadows
Shadows are another tool used in eCommerce image editing to give product images more realism.
Prepare to work with Natural, Drop, and Reflection shadows, which are the three main types of shadows.
When the object is placed in direct sunlight, a shadow naturally forms. The ability to capture this shadow effect shouldn’t be a problem.
Drop shadows give the impression that the object was taken from above. They resemble the shadows that form when an object is exposed to direct sunlight. If you are photographing furniture, be aware of drop shadows. These shadows give the appearance that the furniture is actually standing on the ground. Additionally, when photographing shoes, think about drop shadows.
The appearance that the product is on a reflective surface is created by reflection shadows, which are more expressive and even beautiful. These shadows blend in well with jewelry, watches, and sunglasses, giving the impression that they are on glass shelves or in a glass case to customers.
5. Correct Colors with Color Correction
Keep in mind color correction when learning how to edit product photos. The main causes of color distortion are an incorrectly set up camera or inconsistent lighting.
Due to light reflection from the product, the shade of the product occasionally has an impact on the background. As an illustration, a red wallet reflects red light onto the background, giving the image a pinkish hue. The entire trimming, including the zippers and buttons, may take on a pink hue. The color correction can help in this situation by restoring the original colors.
Correcting colors during the post-production stage of the picture won’t be necessary if everything is set up properly, including the studio lighting and precise camera configurations. However, you can still use color correction techniques with certain products. Bright hues and shiny surfaces are more likely to cause unwanted toning that needs to be corrected.
Color correction will be necessary if the item has “extraordinary” colors like neons because the camera might not reflect them properly. You can avoid using drastic color corrections in this situation by simply adjusting the item’s saturation, contrast, and hue. Use automatic color correction and slider-based manual adjustments when editing product photos in more sophisticated software.
6. Consistently crop images
It must be cropped for it to be the ideal eCommerce image. Since the DSLR camera produces rather large images, they cannot be uploaded to the web store page without first being cropped. To achieve consistent shape and size across all of the photos is another reason to crop them. This is especially important if you plan to post multiple images of the same item side by side. Otherwise, a line of disparate-sized images will look disorganized.
The object is meant to fill the majority of the frame. Customers won’t be able to thoroughly inspect an item if it is displayed against a large background because it appears tiny. The center of the shot would be the ideal location for the object.
