For anyone selling jewellery on an e-commerce store, there are some fundamentals of jewellery photography that must be understood and some serious mistakes to avoid. Any product photographer will know that these mistakes are not exclusive to jewellery and so they are good lessons to learn for everyone.

Failing to prepare your products

Jewellery photography is all about quality, about detail and about the focus on these intricate and beautiful products. As a result, a failure to prepare the pieces of jewellery properly will be reflected in your images.

Take the time to clean each item, polish it where appropriate and use gloves whilst handling them during the photo shoot. You should remember that many of your images will be zoomed in, highlighting blemishes that are not visible to the naked eye, so always review the first few shots to make sure you’ve prepared them properly.

Using the wrong background

In sales and marketing, we are pushed towards the idea that plain white or black backgrounds are boring and ineffective. For any jewellery photographer, it is actually the opposite situation and that distinction is vital to understand.

For a start, plain backgrounds are generally easier to work with, cheaper to buy and set up and a useful tool in the armoury of any product photographer. Secondly and perhaps most importantly, you don’t want to distract people from the product itself, you want them to be drawn straight to a beautiful piece of jewellery. As an added point, remember that many e-commerce sites will insist on plain white backgrounds before you can upload images.

Reflections in your jewellery

If you have ever looked at an item online and seen a reflection, your mind will probably have drifted to thinking about what is in the reflection and away from the product itself. For jewellery photography, it is imperative that you avoid this mistake.

Working with glass, jewels and precious metals, you will be more susceptible to reflections than most product photographers, so make sure you take the time to set up your lighting correctly. Also, spend time thinking about what the jewellery will sit on and what background it will have, ensuring reflections are reduced and blocked where possible. Not only will this help with reflections but improve the quality of the image.

A lack of focus

A quick and easy mistake to avoid – make sure you use the right focus and get full, sharp images that really do show off your product. A customer purchasing jewellery online faces a much tougher decision because they cannot see and feel the product. As a result, you need your product images to be as life-like as possible to allow customers to imagine wearing the jewellery.

Using a lot of props

This mistake falls into the same category as confusing or busy backgrounds. You don’t want to take the focus away from the piece of jewellery that you’re trying to sell, so why would you put in a lot of props or distracting props that offer no real value.

There is a temptation for jewellery photography and product photographers in general, to feel the need to create elaborate lifestyle shots. This concept works on occasion but minimal props and basic jewellery kits are a relatively inexpensive way to get consistent, quality, focused images for your e-commerce store.