How to Take Product Photos for Your Online Listings (With a Phone)

In an online shop, the photo is the product. A shopper cannot pick the item up, so the pictures have to do what hands and eyes would do in a store. The good news is that you do not need a studio. A recent phone, a window and a few cheap materials are enough to take photos that look clean and trustworthy.

This guide covers the light, the background, the angles, the size reference and the editing. It finishes with a shot list you can reuse for any listing. The marketplaces have their own rules for image size and background, so check them for the sites where you sell; our guide to Etsy photo sizes lists the sizes for Etsy.

Light is the most important thing

Good light makes a cheap camera look good, and bad light makes an expensive camera look bad. The easiest good light is soft daylight from a window.

• Put the product next to a window, with the light coming from the side. Direct sun on the product makes harsh shadows and bright patches; shoot on a bright, slightly cloudy day, or hang a thin white curtain over the window.
• Turn off the room lights. Mixed light from lamps and windows gives colours a strange tint.
• Use a white card or a piece of white foam board on the shadow side to bounce light back and soften shadows.
• Avoid the camera's flash. It flattens the product and creates glare on shiny surfaces.

If you take photos at night or in a dark room, a pair of daylight-colour lamps with a diffuser works, but natural light is cheaper and usually looks better.

Keep the background simple

A busy background competes with the product. A plain surface keeps the eye on the item, and a consistent background across your photos makes a shop look professional.

• A white or light grey background suits most products and is often required for the main image on marketplaces such as Amazon. A sheet of white poster board bent into a curve, with no hard line behind the product, works well.
• For handmade items on Etsy, lifestyle backgrounds such as wood, linen or a styled shelf can add warmth, as long as the product stays the clear subject.
• Keep props few and relevant. Everything in the frame should either help the shopper understand the product or be removed.
• Clean the product and the surface. Dust and fingerprints show up more than you expect.

Hold the phone steady and use the right settings

• Use a small tripod or rest the phone on a stack of books so the photos are sharp and the angle stays the same from shot to shot.
• Clean the lens with a soft cloth. A smudge on the lens makes every photo hazy.
• Tap the screen on the product to set focus, and slide the brightness a little if the phone offers it. Keep the whole product in focus.
• Use the main camera, not the front camera, and do not zoom digitally; move closer instead.
• Shoot a little wider than you need. You can crop later, but you cannot add what was not in the frame.

The shots every listing needs

1. A clear main photo of the whole product, centred, with a small margin around it. This is the picture that appears in search results, so it must be easy to understand at a small size.
2. Other angles: front, back, sides and top where they matter.
3. A close-up of the most important detail: the texture, the stitching, the engraving, the clasp.
4. The product in use, worn or placed in a room, so shoppers can picture it in their own life.
5. A size reference: the product next to a coin, a hand or a ruler, or a photo with the dimensions written on it.
6. What is included, laid out together, if it is a set or comes with extras.
7. Packaging, if it matters for gifts.

Put these in an order that tells a story, starting with the main photo and then answering questions in the order shoppers ask them. If you sell a digital product, show the pages or the finished result and a mockup in a room or on a device, and be honest about what the file contains.

Edit lightly

Light editing can fix small problems, but it should never change the product. Colour that looks different from the real item causes returns.

• Crop to the right shape for the marketplace.
• Raise the brightness a little if the photo is dim, and adjust the white balance so whites look white.
• Keep the colours true to the product. Compare the screen with the item in your hand.
• Do not add heavy filters, text or badges unless the marketplace allows them on that image.
• Save the photos at a good quality and the right size, not so large that the page loads slowly.

Name and describe your photos

Give files simple, descriptive names, such as linen-tote-bag-natural-front.jpg, instead of a camera number. When the marketplace lets you add alt text to a photo, write a plain sentence that says what is visible. It helps shoppers who use screen readers, and it is read if the image fails to load. Our alt text guide shows examples.

Look at your photos as a shopper would

Before you upload, view the photos on a phone, at the small size they will appear in search results. Can you tell what the product is? Does the first photo stand out among the others for that search? Ask a friend who has never seen the product what they think its size, colour and material are. Their wrong guesses show you which photo is missing.

A routine that saves time

Set up your light and background once and photograph several products in one session. Keep the same distance, the same angle and the same editing for every product of a type. A consistent set of photos builds a recognisable shop and takes less time per listing.