- Having amazing product photography is the make
or break factor for making sales on your e-commerce store.
It doesn't matter how good your product is because
if you have bad product photos, you're going to
be fighting a losing battle.
- I'm fighting an uphill battle.
- [Stephanie] Since online shoppers
can't physically touch your products
they're really basing their purchasing decisions
on the value that your product photos convey.
But before you spend thousands of dollars on a new camera
and lighting setup, I'm going to show you how to
make impactful product photos on a budget by using only
your smartphone and some natural light.
In today's video, I'm going to be breaking
down some low cost and easy ways that you can take
professional looking photos yourself
from the comfort of your own home.
Let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
Now let's get one thing out of the way upfront.
If you have the budget for it, then yes,
hiring a professional photographer is totally
a smart business decision and can make a huge difference.
After all, they're professionals for a reason.
But what if you don't have the budget right now?
What if you're trying to launch your business
and money is feeling really tight?
- No. See, I have no money.
- [Stephanie] Well, fortunately, it's easier
than ever to take gorgeous product photos yourself
even if you only have a smartphone to work with.
Today I'm going to start
by sharing the four key things that I think you need
in order to be able to take great photos on your phone
and spoiler alert, two of them cost less than a dollar each.
Then I'm gonna walk you
through a few easy steps to take great photos that are ready
for your online store without spending a lot
of time or money in the process.
By the end of this video, I hope you're going to
feel energized and inspired to take some photos yourself
and get your business going.
By the way, before I go any further, I need to let you know
about an amazing resource that's going to go even more
in depth into this topic than I can in just one video.
We actually have an entire product photography
course that is totally free to join.
In it you're going to learn step-by-step
how to take amazing product photos
at home for less than $50 in equipment.
This course is super detailed and totally free to join
so if you wanna go even further
into the world of product photography
be sure to click the link in our description box below
for instant access to the course.
Okay, so are you ready to take some beautiful photos
on your phone?
Here's how we're gonna do it.
Step one, gather your tools.
Like I said
you don't need very much to be able to take a great photo.
The four things you'll need are, number one
a smartphone, with as good of a camera as you can afford.
The higher the megapixels the better.
I recommend picking one with at least 12 megapixels
but any recent smartphone released in the past five
or so years will probably do a decent job.
Number two, a tripod that can hold your phone.
Phone tripods are pretty inexpensive
but make a huge difference in terms
of the image stability and quality that you're gonna get.
There are options online starting at $15, but
if money is really tight, you can borrow one from a friend
or just tape your phone to something really sturdy.
Number three, a sheet of thin white poster board.
And number four, a sheet of white foam board.
One will act as your backdrop for your products
and one will be a great way to bounce light onto your shot.
You can find both for less
than a dollar each at any dollar store near you.
And that's it for equipment.
There are a few bonus items that you might wanna grab
like a thin white bed sheet to diffuse the sunlight
or some masking tape to help you put together your set.
But since most people have these lying around the house
we're not counting them
as essential gear that you need to buy.
Other than that, you just need to find the right spot
in your house to take your photos.
The ideal location is gonna be a room
with a big window that gets lots of great natural light.
You just need to make sure you have enough space to pull
up a table right alongside the window
so that you can get your equipment all set up properly.
Step two, create your setup.
Once you found the right window, it's time to set up.
Bring your table up next to the window, and if possible
have the table flush up against a nearby wall.
If you don't have a wall nearby
you can use a big stack of books on the edge
of your table or a lamp placed just behind the table.
Next, let's put up that backdrop.
Using some tape, secure each end of your white poster board
at the top and at the bottom so
that it creates what's known in the industry as a sweep.
We want the board to sweep from horizontal
to vertical in a gentle curve so
that there are no harsh lines or edges that will be shown
in the photo behind your products.
At this point, do a test
of the lighting conditions in the room.
If your window is letting in too much sunlight
it's going to start to cast some harsh shadows
which do not look great in product photos.
You can either move your setup a little further away
from the window or find
that white bed sheet I mentioned, or some translucent paper
like parchment paper that you can put up
in front of the window to diffuse the light a little bit.
Lastly, grab that white foam board and fold it in half.
This is known as your bounce, and you can set it
up on the far side of the product away from the window.
These white cards are going to help bounce the light back
onto your product
making it look really well lit from all angles.
Step three, adjust your settings.
Set up your phone on your tripod
and put your product onto your sweep with the window
on one side and your bounce boards on the other.
Your tripod should be centered
and ideally placed at eye level with the product
at least for your first few shots.
Make sure that the phone is close enough
to your product that you're not seeing any exposed edges
around the sides of your sweep.
This is why it can be a great idea to get a bit larger
of a poster board so
that you have more room on your backdrop to play with.
You also want to make sure
that you turn off all the other lights in the room.
Different lights have different light color temperatures
and so having more than one lighting source
can really distort the product colors
in your photos if you don't know what you're doing.
So to avoid this, we're going to rely
on just the natural light from the window.
So make sure you pick a nice sunny day to take your shots
and turn off all the other lights.
Finally, you want to make sure
that you adjust your phone's camera settings
for the best possible outcome.
Every phone camera is a bit different
but most will give you the ability to set
and lock your focus point and to manually adjust
your exposure to either brighten or darken the image.
If you have the option to adjust the white balance
that's a great idea too.
Just choose a point on your white background to set it up so
that your colors will be as close to real life as possible.
I also recommend turning off your phone's flash
since it tends to create some shadows in the image
and washes out your product colors.
Natural lighting is much easier to work with
and will usually give you better results.
And whatever you do, please don't zoom in
on the phone itself.
If you need a closer angle, move the tripod in rather
than pinching your screen.
Zooming in will drastically reduce the quality
of your photo.
And for product photography, we definitely don't want that.
Step four, take your photos.
Now that you've got everything set up properly
it's time to get creative.
And this is one situation where more is definitely more.
♪ Never enough. ♪
- You're going to want to air on the side
of taking more photos than you think you'll need
because you can always pick the best ones later.
Here are some other things to keep
in mind while you're shooting.
Get lots of angles.
Like I said, the main photo angle
for product photography is shooting the product
at eye level, but it shouldn't stop there.
Once you've gotten some really good straight on shots
start to branch out.
In general, you'll also want to shoot the product from above
at a high angle or in a bird's eye view or from a low angle.
Just think about showcasing the product
from all possible angles
so your shoppers can get a good sense
of how the product will look in person.
All shoe companies, like for example
Vessi or Allbirds are really great
at this because they always show their shoes
from every possible angle, including the bottom of the sole.
No matter what you're photographing
you can take inspiration from those kinds of businesses
and emulate it when capturing your own products.
Take photos of details.
When it comes to buying online
it's really common for customers to closely
study product photos before buying
since they can't actually touch and feel the product first.
So if you can give them lots of visual information up front
in your photos, it can go a really long way
in helping them make a purchasing decision.
Think about taking photos of the textures
of fabric or pottery, details like stitching and enclosures
or even what the inside of the item looks like.
Peak design creates smart and simple bags and camera gear
and I love how they always show the tiniest details
of their products, like how their zippers close
and super up close shots of their buckles, straps and clips.
You feel like when you look at their photos
you already know what you're getting even before you buy.
Include some lifestyle photos.
One of the most compelling ways to showcase your photos
is to show them in context of how they'll actually be used.
And for this kind of photography, you might even
need less equipment because you can show things
like home goods right in your apartment
or fashion products styled on a model who is out and about.
One company that does this really well is CAMBIE design
which sells beautiful blankets
and other stylish objects for the home.
Their blankets are always shown styled
in beautiful home environments
which give you a great example
of how they can be displayed to add a lot
of richness and texture to your own home.
Step five, edit your photos.
If you've done everything right up until now
your photos might not need all that much editing.
The white background and bounce boards will hopefully
have created a pretty even lighting setup
and a smooth backdrop
which will make your products look pretty great already.
That said, a little retouching always helps
and you can do it straight from your phone.
There are tons of apps out there to choose from
but some of my favorites are Snapseed, Lightroom
for Android or iPhone and Adobe Photoshop Express.
All of these are free to download
to your phone and offer a lot of great features for
making your photos look just that much more professional.
Once you found an app you like
pick your photos and start editing.
There are no hard and fast rules here, but in my experience
most product photos seem to benefit from a little boost
in brightness, sharpness, contrast, and saturation,
as well as a slight reduction in highlights.
But I recommend that you don't go overboard here.
Avoid making any drastic edits
or applying really intense filters
because they'll affect your photo colors
and change the way that the product looks on the website.
The rule of thumb is
that you want your photos to be as true to life as possible
so that you're giving your customers the most
accurate representation of what your products look like.
If you wanna take your editing up to another level
try to brighten up your background
by using tools like the Dodge and Burn brush
on Snapseed or selective adjustments on Lightroom mobile.
Since the background will already be pretty white, thanks
to our setup, these tools should give us a pretty
convincing white background without needing too much effort.
But if you want to, you can take this a step further
by transferring your photos to the computer and using a tool
like Adobe Photoshop Express to auto remove the background
in one click and add a pure white layer
behind it to create a very clean image.
Or another option is to pay for photo retouching
through a service like pixels, which starts at $1.45
per image and will edit your photos professionally
to all the main industry standards.
That said, to be honest
I think you can achieve really great results
with just your phone alone
without the need for any fancy editing.
So it's worth a try before you pay for help.
And with that, that's it.
You're done.
Congratulations. You are now
in possession of some seriously beautiful photos
that you can use to sell your products online.
Once you have your amazing product photos in hand
you're going to need to have somewhere to put them.
And if I were starting an online store right now
the obvious choice for selling online is Shopify.
Shopify is the world's best e-commerce platform.
And just like this channel, it's designed to help you
either start or grow your online business
no matter what stage
of the entrepreneurial journey you might be at.
The entire platform is set up to make it easy
and streamlined for you to go
from product idea to actual sales in just a few clicks.
So click the link in our description box below
to start your free trial today and make the most
of these beautiful product photos that you're creating.
Now, obviously, product photography is a huge subject
and there is so much more to explore
than I can cover in just one video.
So if you're curious to take your product
photography even further, be sure to check
out that free in-depth course that I mentioned earlier
which will be linked in our description box below.
And if you have any great DIY photography tips
for beginners that I missed
be sure to drop them in the comments
so that we can crowdsource some of your great ideas.
Speaking of great ideas, if you liked this video
and you love to learn about online business
it would be a great idea
for you to subscribe to our channel.
We release new episodes every single week that are
specifically designed to teach you everything you
need to know about starting or growing your online business.
So if you're interested in those topics
hit that button and we'll see you in the next one.
In the meantime, feel free to keep exploring some
of our other playlists about building your Shopify store
or marketing your new business
which will also be linked below.
For now, I wanna thank you so much for watching.
I'm your host, Stephanie Pellet, and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)