Your product photography is absolutely crucial when it comes selling your products, especially online when buyers don’t have anything else to refer to when comparing their options. The exact same product can sell much better with high quality photos, but unfortunately many products fail to reach their sales potential due to low quality photography. It’s much more advisable to make use of a professional product photographer, so you can avoid the most common pitfalls of amateur product photography. Here are some of the main reasons many DIY product photography efforts don’t succeed.

Unsuitable lighting

Artificial lighting can create some strange effects, even if you’re using a good quality camera. It normally results in unrealistic colouring and an image that doesn’t resemble what you would see with the human eye. Even natural lighting isn’t necessarily the best, since direct sunlight can create distracting shadows and dark conditions make it difficult for any camera to capture an accurate image.

Using flash

Sometimes it’s tempting to use a built-in flash rather than setting up complicated sets to get lighting right. For product photography this is rarely a good move, since colours are likely to look washed out and the harsh light will draw attention to any small imperfections in your product.

Distracting backgrounds

A cluttered background will distract from the features and overall look of your product, and usually looks unprofessional. In fact, to list your products online it’s often against guidelines to have anything other than a plain background in your photos, since it’s easy to mislead customers by including other items in the image.

Low quality equipment

Cheaper digital cameras or even those built into most mobile phones are often used for product photography, and the results are rarely professional or suitable for e-commerce. Most amateurs don’t have access to the necessary equipment to get the best possible results, so this is an area that really calls for professional product photographers to step in.

No digital editing

Even the best photography can usually gain something from a little careful polishing and manipulation with a digital editing suite. You can fine tune your photos without misrepresenting the product itself, and you’re likely to get much better results in terms of brightness, colour and overall looks. However, this is another area that requires a professional’s involvement to get the best results.

Lack of imagination

The biggest problem facing businesses that try to manage their own product photography on a non-existent budget is generally a lack of creativity when it comes to taking the actual photographs. Basic angles and automatic settings tend to let down even the most attractive products and lead to missed opportunities.