Introduction
As a general business practice, we do not strongly recommend maintaining “perfection” as a goal: otherwise, you will never be able to market your product, launch your site, or put yourself in a position to test yourself. But when it comes to the product photography on your e-commerce site? Then ecommerce product photo editing comes.
We allow you to strive for perfection. Remember, almost half of your prospects believe that pictures of high quality in deciding whether to buy from you and now working to create stellar product images means that when you open your virtual door you will not only be able to give the prospect an outstanding site experience, you will also have images ready to use in social and email campaigns to drive traffic to your store.
In other words, your off-site marketing will be halved.
In fact, in the case of product photography, “post-production processing” is virtually inevitable. If you’ve following us, you’ve taken the time to perfect your photos in the studio as much as possible- the right backdrop, the right studio lighting, the right exposure triangle- but now it’s time to “professionalize” your results. Photo editing will not turn bad product photographs, into great marketing material, but it will turn out to be significantly more a good result.
Again
If you follow our best practice shots for your shoot, the editing process should be rather simple. It’s better to think of it as “polishing” or “tweaking” than “editing” you just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. When you work, keep that mantra in mind- “crisp, clean, professional”.
And remember, make sure to create a set of images that represent your product as accurately and accurately as possible. Post-production Editing is not about making your product look like it is. Misrepresenting your offer will only result in dissatisfied customers, negative reviews, complaints on social media, high return rate. You will get the idea. All the things you don’t want.
Either way, read this first, and you will discover that the process is much easier than you imagined. And all, no one is asking you to master every imaginable Photoshop feature. We will discuss this further, just a few of you need a strong understanding of the process, some tools will streamline your editing workflow and maximize your productivity.
And if post-production seems scary, remember that the software you choose has lots of tutorials (on their website or YouTube, videos) that take you through each of the following steps by step.
Ecommerce Product Photo Editing
Of course, editing product images can be rather time-consuming, especially initially. The software or apps you choose will require some learning curves, some trials errors.. and of course, the more powerful the tool, the greater the curve. But with some perseverance, you can do it yourself. And once you’ve got the hang of your favorite tool, you’ll be slowing down site-ready images with increasing speed.
Before you dive in, you will want to decide on your editing software and take some to play around so that you feel comfortable with them when it comes time to do the real thing. If you are not yet sure which software to use, then we have some more suggestions for you on this page. You’ll notice that we’ve mentioned Photoshop a bit here because it’s an ideal program for post-production not to mention that it’s more affordable since Adobe moved to a subscription model. You can get Creative Cloud Photography, which integrates.
Shoot Product Photo
Once you have chosen your software, take some time to review all the images you have taken while shooting your product. Choose the most powerful ones- the ones that are most ready to be published- move them to your computer, and either delete the other ones or move them to a separate folder so they don’t get lost.
Note: Even if you take pictures on your smartphone or your computer. A larger screen means you can see the pictures in more detail and find any imperfections in the photograph more quickly. Nowadays capturing product photo is an easy task but ecommerce product photo editing is not easy to present that to your customers as well.
Make sure you only delete images you don’t want to use at all! And before you start editing, make a duplicate copy of the one you uploaded. If something goes wrong while editing, you’ll want access to the original shots. Come with us when it’s done because we take you through the basics of product image editing.
Background Removal
We know you spent all that time setting up a white broom for your product shoot, and now we’re asking you to listen to the background? Yes, that’s right you can now become known as a lord of the true color. If your photos are taken correctly, you will probably notice that your “white backdrop” looks lighter gray than white. What’s more, the sharp contrast with a white background makes it easy to photograph your product with clear lines when you remove the background.
This process will be especially important if you use a mannequin for your shoot. If you sell clothing you should do it yourself, it helps prospects understand how the material is worn and how the item fits so they can better portray themselves after it. But you will eventually want to remove the mannequin, leaving only the clothing article, as the iceberg does:
Of course,
you don’t have to remove the background, but the fact that white backgrounds are an industry-standard ( 76% of product images are full of white backgrounds and another 15.7% transparent backgrounds) should tell you something. There are many eliminates shadows and other confusion, and makes your images compliant with the standards of third-party marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay. Transparent backgrounds are effective for re-displaying promotional material with a dark background.
The best tool for background removal is adobe photoshop’s pen tool. You can learn how to use Adobe’s pen tool for this purpose at Clipping Path King, or if you want to write better through video, try CreativeSalak’s YouTube video. A quick Google search or Adobe’s user forum for Photoshop should help with any long-term question.
Photoshop also offers a quick selection tool. (“Selection and Mask) but it leaves Photoshop to outline the product instead of giving you full control. As such, you run the risk of cutting your product platform. If you want to play with a slightly less expensive project, Clipping Magic is a powerful online tool.
Sport Retouching technique for ecommerce product photo editing
If you follow us for the shooting of your product, you have cleaned your full shorts before taking pictures (and cleaned them again!). But dust will be dust, and fingerprints will be fingerprints. Pay attention to the errors you notice. In Photoshop, for example, you have several options, including the clone stamp tool. But for small touchups, you may not need an advanced editor. If you have to edit on your smartphone, there are plenty of photo retouching apps.
Color Correction
Once the background shots are removed and the spots are fixed, it’s time to make those small adjustments that make sure your photographs reflect your products as much as possible and make them “pop” a bit more on the screen.
The most important of these processes is color correction. Now, hopefully, you were as careful as possible with the white balance on your camera when you were shooting, but the bulbs you used could leave a bit of a blue tinge to your product, or it may camera during the session. Switched and different cameras capture colors a little differently.
The color correction allows for consistency across images even when the sun is not fixed in the sky when you change your camera. What’s more, some colors (for example, neon) are more difficult to “capture” in a photograph, and therefore need to be tweaked regardless of post-production.
Batch Process Your Corrections
We’ve talked at length about how image consistency is important for the experience of users of your e-commerce site. It helps them compare your offers and make faster purchasing decisions, demonstrates your professionalism (which is an indication of trust), and has the psychological comfort that results from that visual identity.
Now if we tell you that there have been editing tools that you can include in the workflow that automates that continuity for you? Color, white balance, exposure, warmth, contrast, and more can be adjusted across images with software like Adobe Creative Cloud.
Shadow Manipulation
Remember, there is a difference between the shadow cast on your product (which obscures its details or distracts the viewer from the object at hand) and the shadow of your product (which gives it depth and dimension). You don’t want the former but you can ask for the latter. Finer details, such as the efficient use of shadows, can make your product images look more professional, ultimately increasing your sales.
Cropping and Straightening
Lastly and for consistency make sure your images are the same size and dimensions and have the same margins (the space between the edges of your products and the edges of your photographs is the same elsewhere). Of course, you paid attention to this when shooting using the grid function on your phone or camera, but now is the time to perfect it. If you use Photoshop, use a smart guide or a grid. You can then create a template according to your guidelines, ensuring uniformity and consistency throughout the image.
Ecommerce Product Photo Editing Tools
We point to Adobe’s Photoshop and Lightroom because they are the most powerful and well-known photo editing applications out there, and they are an ideal platform for ecommerce product photo editing for the e-commerce business. They need a willingness to endure a learning curve, but once you’ve become comfortable with them, you’ve got a powerful tool in your e-commerce tool belt.
Adobe has also moved into the mobile space in recent years, so if you’re editing on your smartphone, you can check out their free Photoshop express app for Android and iPhone, or the mobile version of their Lightroom for iPhone and iPad. Other photo editing tools for the desktop include:
GIMP
GIMP is a free, open-source alternative to Photoshop that is almost identical to the capabilities of Photoshop but also has a steep learning process due to its wide range of advanced features, Pixelmator, is a user-friendly alternative to Photoshop GIMP. It contains all the basic tools you need to perform the edits we discussed above.
There’s also a pro version of Pixelmator (there’s a difference between Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro), If you probably don’t need the Pro features for your product user friendly and offers many advanced features of Photoshop. It’s also free. A director tells Pixel the closest thing to Photoshop in your browser. Like many of these platforms, Pixel has a mobile alternative.
Canvas and PicMonkey are two online photo editors who get strong reviews, fear company mobile app offers. Other app options ( again, only if you need to edit on your smartphones) Google’s Snapseed, Darkroom, Fotor, and VSCO also have desktop options.
Finding a Professional ecommerce product photo editing company
Perhaps you’ve read the above, taking the time to consider whether DIY photo editing is an initiative. Perhaps you have determined that outsourcing the retouching phase is understandable to anyone. After all, as your e-commerce project gets off the ground, there are plenty of other things to look forward to, and these are ultimately repetitive tasks perhaps the best work done by professional retouches can do everything from removing the flaws you noticed in your product to editing the loose threads in the sweater you picked up. They also specialize in marketplace image guidelines and can ensure that they are applied correctly.