How to take product photos for your online store: a hands-on phone photography course

To take good product photos for your online store, you need a phone, a window, a white backdrop and a clean product. Place the product beside the window in soft daylight, keep the phone level and steady, shoot a planned set of angles, then crop and lightly correct the images the same way every time.

This is a short hands-on course. Seven lessons each give you a goal, steps, a common mistake and a practice task, and a one-hour assignment at the end gets you your first 10 good product photos the same day.

Lesson 1: What do buyers need to see in a product photo?

Goal: know what the photos must prove before you pick up the phone.

An online buyer cannot touch, hold or try on your product. The photos have to answer what a shopper would ask in a physical store: shape, size, real colour, texture, use and what comes in the box.

Two terms help here. The main image is the first photo shoppers see on a listing and in search results, normally on a plain background. The gallery is every other image on the product page, where you show angles, detail, scale and use.

Steps: write down the three questions buyers ask most about this product, then plan a shot list like the one below, main image first.

Common mistake: shooting one pretty picture and calling it done. A single image leaves doubts, and doubts lose sales. Our guide to product page essentials shows how photos work with titles and specs.

Practice: pick one product and write its shot list with at least five shots.

Lesson 2: What equipment do I need for product photography?

Goal: gather a simple kit for almost no money.

You do not need a professional camera. A recent phone is enough, and the way you use it matters more than the model.

What you need:

• A phone with a clean lens. A smudged lens makes every photo hazy.
• A tripod or a stack of books and something to hold the phone steady.
• A white sheet, poster board or seamless paper as a backdrop.
• Two white foam boards or sheets of card to bounce light.
• Optional: a small lightbox for tiny items.

Common mistake: buying gear before learning light. A cheap setup in window light beats expensive gear in a dim room.

Practice: build the setup and take one test photo of any object.

Lesson 3: How do I get good light for product photos?

Goal: make soft, even light that shows true colour.

Hard light comes from a small, bright source, such as direct sun or a bare bulb, and creates sharp shadows and glare. Soft light comes from a large, diffused source, such as a window on a cloudy day, and creates gentle shadows and smooth gradients. Product photography almost always wants soft light.

Steps:

1. Put the product on a table beside the window, with the window to one side.
2. Switch off every lamp in the room. Mixed bulbs add yellow and blue casts that are hard to remove.
3. If sun shines directly on the set, hang a thin white curtain or taped baking paper over the glass.
4. Place a white board on the opposite side to bounce light into the shadows.

Common mistake: mixing lamp light with window light. The photo ends up with two colours of light, and the product looks different from the real one.

Practice: photograph one object in direct sun, under lamps and in soft window light with a white board. Compare.

Lesson 4: What background and set should I use?

Goal: a clean, consistent background across the catalogue.

A plain white or neutral background keeps attention on the product and makes the catalogue look like one store. Use it for the main image, and save lifestyle backgrounds for gallery images.

Steps:

1. Tape the backdrop to the wall and let it curve down onto the table, with no hard crease.
2. Place the product a little away from the wall to avoid a hard shadow.
3. Use the same backdrop, table position and window for every product.
4. For gallery shots, add context such as a hand or a shelf, but keep it uncluttered.

Marketplace note: if you sell on Amazon, eBay or Etsy, each marketplace has its own rules for the main image, and those rules change. Check the marketplace's current image guidelines before you shoot. Selling in several places? Our guide to marketplace stock sync covers the operations side.

Common mistake: a busy background, creased paper or a different backdrop every time.

Practice: shoot one product on your backdrop and check that no crease or shadow line shows.

Lesson 5: Which camera technique makes product photos look professional?

Goal: sharp, level and consistent frames.

Steps:

1. Turn on the camera grid lines and keep the horizon and product edges straight.
2. Hold the phone level at the height of the product, unless you are shooting a flat lay.
3. Keep the same distance and angle for every product in the catalogue.
4. Tap the product to focus, then adjust brightness until whites look white and details survive.
5. Do not use digital zoom. Move the phone closer or crop later.
6. Turn off the flash. It flattens the product and creates glare.
7. Shoot at the highest quality and use the timer to avoid shake.
8. Clean the product before every shot: dust and fingerprints off with a microfibre cloth, wrinkles steamed, lint rolled away.

Common mistake: different distances and angles, so product sizes look uneven in a grid.

Practice: shoot one product from front, side, back and top at the same distance, then zoom in on screen to check sharpness.

Lesson 6: How do I photograph difficult products?

Goal: handle reflective, soft, tiny and tricky items.

Reflective items (jewellery, glass, metal): shiny surfaces show their surroundings. Use diffused light and place white or black cards around the item to control what reflects.

Clothing: choose one style and keep it: flat lay on a clean surface, on a hanger, or on a mannequin. Iron or steam first and fold every item the same way.

Tiny items: use a steady phone or tripod, move close without digital zoom and use the macro mode if your phone has one.

Dark and white products: these fool the camera's exposure. Tap on the product and adjust exposure so blacks stay deep and whites stay clean.

Food and cosmetics: make labels readable and straight-on. Show texture with a close-up or swatch.

Common mistake: letting yourself and the phone show in the reflection. Step aside or block it with a card.

Practice: shoot your hardest product with and without a card to see how reflections change.

Lesson 7: How do I edit and export product photos?

Goal: consistent, light edits and well-named files.

Editing should make the photo match the product, not improve it. Any editing tool on a phone or computer will do.

Steps:

1. Crop to one fixed aspect ratio across the catalogue (for example square or four by five). One ratio keeps product grids tidy.
2. Straighten so horizons and edges are level.
3. Correct white balance and brightness lightly until whites look white and the colour matches the real product. Do not over-saturate.
4. Clean the background by removing dust spots.
5. Export at a resolution large enough to zoom, balanced against file size, because large files slow pages down.
6. Name files descriptively with hyphens and no spaces, such as blue-ceramic-mug-front.webp.
7. Write alt text that describes the image in one short, plain sentence, for visually impaired users and search engines. For example: "Blue ceramic mug with a wooden handle on a white background."

WebP is a compact image format that keeps quality at a smaller file size. Our ecommerce SEO guide covers image names, alt text and page speed.

Common mistake: boosting saturation and contrast until the product looks vivid, and then wondering why customers say "not as pictured".

Practice: edit one photo, export it with a descriptive file name and write its alt text.

Hypothetical example: from one dim photo to a six-image set

This is a hypothetical example with no real figures. A small shop sells handmade ceramic mugs. Its first listing has one photo taken under a kitchen ceiling light, with a patterned tablecloth behind the mug and a glaze that looks greyer than in real life.

The owner follows the course:

1. Shot list: main image, side view with the handle, top view showing the inside, glaze close-up, a hand holding the mug for scale and the mug in its packaging.
2. Light: the table moves next to a window, the ceiling light goes off and baking paper softens the glass.
3. Background: a white poster board curves up the wall.
4. Technique: the phone sits on a stack of books at mug height with the grid on, and a timer avoids shake.
5. Editing: all six images are cropped to one ratio, white balance is matched to the real glaze and files get descriptive names with alt text.

The lesson: light, background and consistency changed the listing, not new equipment.

Your one-hour practice assignment

Use this plan to finish ten good photos in about an hour.

1. Minutes 0 to 10: clean the products and lens, and set up the backdrop by the window.
2. Minutes 10 to 20: check the light, turn off the lamps and place the white board.
3. Minutes 20 to 50: shoot the shot list for two or three products.
4. Minutes 50 to 60: review, pick the best images and note what to improve.

Then crop, correct and export the best set.

Final checklist and common mistakes

The most frequent mistakes are:

• Shooting in mixed light from lamps and windows together.
• Inconsistent framing, with different distances, angles or ratios.
• Over-editing, so colour no longer matches reality.
• Skipping the cleanup and leaving dust and wrinkles.

Product photography with Shopiyz

Shopiyz is a hosted ecommerce platform, and it supports the workflow above in these ways:

• Automatic image optimization: images are converted to WebP and compressed automatically and served through a CDN, so pages stay fast.
• AI image editing: one-click background removal, studio lighting, colour calibration and model styling, aimed at meeting marketplace image standards. AI editing helps but does not replace a sharp, well-lit original photo. Explore Shopiyz AI commerce.
• AI alt text suggestions for images and product descriptions in every language.
• Product pages with schema.org markup that help search engines understand your products. Build them with the drag-and-drop website builder.
• Sell on 42+ marketplaces from one panel, including Amazon, eBay and Etsy. Check each marketplace's current image guidelines before you upload. See marketplace integrations.

More AI ideas are in our guide to AI in ecommerce. See the plans or talk to us.