If you’re a small business owner trying to handle your own product photography, it can be a challenge. But retouching your product photos can take them to the next level!

You don’t want to use a photo that is under-saturated, over-exposed, busy, or just misses that special something. You want to use attractive photos that not only provide helpful information for your customer’s decision-making process, but that reflect what your product looks like in real life.

When you retouch your product photos, keep this in mind so your business will stand out from your competitors—and your customers will be happy.

As you retouch your photos, ask yourself:

1. Is this photo representative and accurate?
2. Is there any information I can add that would be helpful to buyers?
3. Is there anything I should take away so the focus is on the product and my business?

Make Sure Your Product Photos Look Like Your Product

You can achieve a completely different vibe through color touching and color grading. In your family photos, this allows you to make a sunset more vibrant or a portrait less saturated so you don’t look sunburnt.

But when it comes to product photography, accuracy is the key. Of course, when shopping digitally, the color you see may vary according to the monitor, but you should still make an effort to assure that colors are accurate in the original.

Business 2 Community found that 22% of returns happen because a product looks different in person. You won’t get very high sales if customers are constantly returning your products.

Taking a photo of a peacock blue throw and having it appear navy in photos leads to unhappy customers. You may need to retake the photo in better lighting, or just brighten the shot. You might even need to address the color cast.

You also want features to be clear—don’t be afraid to take close-ups of fine details. Making sure the shoppers in your online store know what to expect from your products is key for customer satisfaction.

Add Branding or Information to Your Product Photos

Photo editing can allow you to add information that you didn’t have in the original shot. 

For instance, if you own a business that sells backpacks, you may want to edit a picture to display size measurements beside your backpack, so buyers will know how large or small it is. 

As another example, if you’re a restaurant, just taking photos of your food is not going to display your branding! Not unless you, say, include a napkin with your logo in the shot. But you could overlay your branding and logo onto the corner of the photo or adjust the background to include your branding colors or other elements important to identifying your business.

Remove Elements That Distract from Your Product

You should also consider removing blemishes or unwanted areas from your product photos. A photo of a television might have an unsightly reflection on the screen. You might want to remove a shadow from the background that is a distracting shape or looks dirty. 

If you’re taking photos of board members in the park, you might want to remove distracting background elements like mud puddles, trash cans, or photo-bombers. 

So, remember these three things you definitely need to do if you’re wanting to handle your own photography: make sure the photos are accurate, add important information/branding, and remove distracting elements.

Make sure when taking your own photos that they are attractive and clean. Most of these operations will be tricky if you’re not professionally trained! Need help? No problem! Contact us, and we’ll help you make your photos look professional and beautiful.