Why product photos sell

Learning goal

You will be able to explain that someone shopping online has to trust the photo because they can't hold the product, and that a product photo therefore carries information first and feeling second. You will see that the difference between the photo and the product that arrives at home turns into a return or a hurt review, and treat shrinking this difference as a question of honesty and of business. You will test whether a product reads even in a small frame in search results. You will set up a template that photographs a product range with the same light, the same white balance, the same distance and the same angle, and photograph each new product according to it. If there is a hand holding the product in the frame, you will use that hand's tone as a sign that confirms the product's color. You will take the first step of the product and food track.

The question

In the tile workshop, your friend looks at the handmade bowls lined up on the shelves: deep cobalt blue, white glaze, thin tulip motifs at the rims. The workshop's owner holds out her phone and opens the page in her online shop. One bowl in a blue slipping into purple, the one beside it blurred, the last in a yellowish light and on a tablecloth. In the small frames in the search results, even the bowls' shape can't be picked out. The craftswoman says, "Last month four bowls came back; all with the same note: the color in the photo wasn't this." The same bowl, the same craftswoman; does the photo decide the fate of the sale? Where does the power of the photo in e-commerce come from?

Context

In the first product lesson you saw that a product photo has to introduce the product to the buyer sharply, color-accurately and trustworthily, and tried the set of angles that shows a product from the front, from the side, in detail and in use (Lesson 16.11). In the color section you learned how a custom white balance taken from a neutral surface in the scene, a gray card, puts the colors in place (Lesson 11.2). While building a series we also talked about a series' frames matching each other in light, color and angle, that is, visual consistency (Lesson 23.1).

This track turns those foundations into a job. Over the next nine lessons we will take up the white background, product light, reflective and transparent products, food and working with a client. Before all of them, the question to ask is this: what does a product photo have to achieve, and why?

Simple explanation

Why does the buyer trust the photo?

In a shop the buyer takes the bowl in hand, turns it, looks at the glaze's shine, weighs it. Online, the photo takes the place of all of these. That is why a product photo's first job is to give information: shape, size, color, texture, material. It can carry a feeling too, but a feeling that covers up the information leads a buyer to a wrong decision.

The expectation gap is the difference between the expectation the photo raises in the buyer and the product that reaches their hands. A blue slipped into purple, a glaze shown shinier than it is, or a bowl whose scale is left unclear turns into a disappointment when the box is opened. This gap turns into a return, a shipping cost and a hurt review; and the review affects the next buyer's decision. A photo that shows the product better than it is may sell in the short term, but it widens the expectation gap. Accurate color and honest scale are measurable targets here: when the blue in the photo and the bowl's blue are put side by side, they should look alike.

What reads in a small frame?

Thumbnail legibility is a product photo being recognizable even in a thumb-sized frame in search results or in a grid on a phone screen. The buyer often looks at these small frames first and decides there whether to click. In a small frame fine details are lost; shape, color and contrast remain.

That is why in the main image the product largely fills the frame, the background is kept plain and the product's silhouette separates from the background. A patterned tablecloth blends with the product at a small size; a light-colored bowl gets lost on a light background. A simple test can be made: shrinking the photo on the screen and looking from an arm's length away. If what the product is can still be understood, the frame reads at a small size. Details, texture and the product in use are left to the other frames inside the page.

How is consistency built?

A shooting template is the arrangement, written down and repeated, for photographing every piece of a product range with the same light, the same white balance, from the same distance and height, at the same angle and with the same background. The light's position and power, the camera's settings, the tripod's height and the product's place on the table are noted; the next product is shot in the same arrangement. So when the bowls on a page are lined up side by side they look like a family, and the buyer sees the difference between them in the products, not in the photos.

The part of the template that breaks most easily is the light. Products shot in front of a window come out a different color in the morning and evening; when a ceiling lamp and window light mix, the same blue can shift to purple in one frame and to green in another. A single light source and a custom white balance taken from a gray card at the start of each shoot stop this shift.

If there is a hand holding the product in the frame, that hand both gives the scale and tests the accuracy of the color: the viewer knows how skin should look. When the white balance shifts, the hand is often the first to give it away: dark skin moves toward ash gray and loses its redness, light skin shifts to yellow or a purplish pallor. A frame where the hand looks its own tone supports that the product's color is right too.

Visual evidence

In the back room of the workshop, your friend sets up a shooting template. They close off the window with a thick curtain and turn off the ceiling lamp; they light the bowls with a single soft light, from the side and a little above. They set up the tripod at the same distance and the same height from the bowl; they put the camera in manual and measure a custom white balance with the gray card. They write all these settings on a piece of paper.

They shoot the first bowl and hold the screen beside the bowl on the shelf: the cobalt blue isn't purple, it is as deep and dark as the one on the shelf. Then they shoot five bowls in the same arrangement. Lined up side by side on the screen, all are in the same light, at the same angle; the only difference between them is their patterns and sizes.

The craftswoman wants to be photographed holding a bowl in her hand. She is a woman with wheat-toned skin, her fingers stained blue from tile paint. In an old test where the white balance was left for the ceiling lamp, her hand is yellow and the bowl has slipped into purple; in the new frame her hand is in its own warm wheat tone, the paint stains on her fingers the same color as the bowl's blue. Your friend shrinks the photo on the screen and looks from an arm's length away: the bowl's shape and blue can be picked out even in the tiny frame.

Common mistakes

Summary

In e-commerce the photo takes the place of the product where the buyer can't hold it; that is why it gives information first, and sells to the extent that it shrinks the expectation gap. The main image must read at a small size, all products must be shot with a shooting template in the same light, white balance and angle; a hand in the frame shows both the scale and the accuracy of the color.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will photograph three similar objects at home for a product page.

1. Choose three similar objects, for example three cups or three books; set up a shooting template with a single light source, a gray card and a plain background, and write down its settings.
2. Shoot all three with the same template, then for one of them shoot another frame knowingly mixing window light and the ceiling lamp; compare the colors side by side with the real objects.
3. Photograph one of the objects in someone's hand, with their permission; look at whether the hand's tone looks right, and test all the frames by shrinking them on the screen and looking from an arm's length away.

Check yourself

• How close are the colors in the photo to the objects' real colors?
• Do the three frames stand side by side like a family?
• In the shrunk frame, is the object still recognizable, and is the hand in its own tone?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. In online shopping, what is a product photo's first job?

• A) To show the product shinier than it is
• B) To tell the shape, color, size and texture where the buyer can't hold the product
• C) To decorate the page
• D) To show the photographer's style

2. What happens when the expectation gap grows?

• A) Sales rise permanently
• B) The photo is easier to take
• C) Returns, shipping costs and hurt reviews increase
• D) The product looks smaller

3. How is it tested whether a main image reads at a small size?

• A) By shrinking the frame on the screen and looking from an arm's length away
• B) By enlarging the frame and looking at the detail
• C) By looking at the file's size
• D) By turning the frame black and white

4. If the same blue bowl shifts to purple in one frame and to green in another, what is done?

• A) The color saturation is raised
• B) The bowls are shot at different hours
• C) Window light and the ceiling lamp are used together
• D) A single light source and a custom white balance from a gray card are used

Answers

1. B — Because the buyer can't know the product by touching it, the photo becomes their eye and hand.
2. C — The difference between the photo and the product that arrives turns into disappointment when the box is opened.
3. A — At a small size detail is lost; if shape and color still read, the frame does its job.
4. D — Mixed light shifts color; a single source and a gray card give the same color in every frame.

Summary card

• A product photo gives information first: shape, size, color, texture.
• Shrink the expectation gap: accurate color, honest scale.
• The main image must read at a small size; shrink it and test from afar.
• Write a shooting template: same light, white balance, distance, angle, background.
• A hand in the frame gives the scale and tests the color's accuracy.

Bridge to the next lesson

The craftswoman also wants to put the bowls on a big marketplace; the marketplace's rule is clear: in the main image the product must stand on a flat white background. Your friend lays out a white card and shoots, but on the screen the background is a dirty gray, and under the bowl a dark shadow. How does a product "float" on white? The next lesson takes up getting a clean product image on a pure white background by lighting the background separately from the product and setting the exposure correctly.