How Photo Post Production Can Improve eCommerce Success

Have you considered how product photos influence consumer choices and purchasing decisions?

Photo post production plays a pivotal role in enhancing user interaction in eCommerce websites. With the boom in e-commerce, competition among online stores has intensified. For any eCommerce that wants to sell online, simply listing products with average images and descriptions no longer cuts it. It has become crucial for the brand to present the product as attractive as possible. 

According to Magebit, 90% of consumers report they use images in product searches, and 52% of shoppers abandon the sites and never return because they dislike the aesthetics. A study by Adobe also revealed that 63% of consumers said that “high-quality images help us decide whether or not to buy a product online.” 

It’s fair to say that almost every eCommerce business could benefit from outsourcing photo post production services to improve their website.

But why should they? That’s precisely what this article is about. We will discuss six hidden reasons that make ecommerce post production for businesses successful, along with the brands leading the way in particular.

6 Reasons For Photo Post Production For eComm Success

Have you ever wondered why some online stores have more traffic than others or why some products don’t sell very well? It’s not only the quality of the product that matters here, but also how it is presented.

Efficiency in High-Volume Images

Photo post production allows batch editing, where you can apply the same editing services like color correction, retouching, masking, or background removal to a group of images at once.  This allows businesses to scale their product offerings without sacrificing image quality. 

This reduces editing time and effort when shooting large volumes of product images of similar characteristics such as apparel, footwear, and accessories in different color variations.

Zara

Zara is a fashion brand that exemplifies efficiency through photo post production. It is known for its fast-fashion approach to keep up with its constant influx of new arrivals.

This efficient photo post production is essential for Zara to maintain a rapid pace. Batch editing presets and high-end retouching are crucial in their workflow for quickly editing high-volume images. 

This streamlined approach helps Zara speed up the time to market more products quickly and reduces editing costs by minimizing the time each image requires for processing.

By optimizing its photo editing workflow, Zara:

• Increase product listing quantity: They publish more products faster, potentially leading to more sales.
• Reduce editing costs: Their in-house editors do all the photo post production work, which minimizes their outsourcing costs.
• Maintain consistent branding: They keep a uniform visual identity across an extensive product range, which helps them maintain their luxury brand name. 

This saves their time, enhances productivity, and increases their return on investment. 

Consistency in Product Photos

Product images with inconsistent lighting and background are the last thing you want to put on your website. Inconsistent exposure across different product photos can make the same item look vastly different, which may confuse or mislead customers.

To balance lighting & shadows, photographers use controlled lighting setups to carefully regulate the lights’ intensity, direction, and color temperature. But even with the best equipment, some variations may still occur. 

Retouching experts pay attention to the original lighting conditions of the photo and adjust accordingly to avoid unnatural effects. They also adjust exposure levels and color balance, ensuring each product image is consistent with the next, regardless of the batch or shooting day.

Zara

Zara’s product photos are known for their clean, professional look, accurate color representation, and light consistency. This has been likely achieved through a combination of factors- 

• Controlled Studio Setups: Using professional studio setups, Zara ensures even lighting across all their products.
• Light Metering: Photographers likely use light meters to measure and maintain consistent lighting levels throughout the shoot.
• Calibrated Equipment: Cameras and monitors are regularly calibrated for the accuracy of colors.
• Photo Post Production: Their in-house editors do all the high-end editing and retouching work, which minimizes their outsourcing costs.

By prioritizing consistency in product images, Zara creates a seamless browsing experience for its audience and minimizes the need for extensive photo post production work to present their vast collection efficiently and quickly.

Image Quality

According to E.N Marieb’s book “Human Anatomy and Physiology“, content with high-resolution images gets 94% more views than content without relevant image quality. This proves how visual content engages more of the audience’s brains.

If your product images are dull, distorted, or unrealistic, you will likely not make any sales. Clear and professional-looking images attract customers and encourage them to buy the products.

Outsourcing ecommerce post production involves precise editing techniques to correct colors, remove background, retouching, and more to give your product photos the makeover they need to generate more sales.

ASOS

ASOS is a globally recognized online fashion and cosmetic retailer known for its extensive products and excellent presentation. Here’s how ASOS stands out in terms of image quality in photo post production:

• High-resolution product images: This allows customers to zoom in and see product details.
• Multiple angles and videos: Each product typically has images from multiple angles, often including a video showcasing the worn item. This helps in giving a clearer sense of the product’s fit and material.
• Consistent tonality: ASOS maintains a consistent look across all its product images, with uniform lighting and styling. This consistency helps build customer trust and enhance the user experience.
• Color accuracy: They ensure that the colors shown in the images are as close as possible to the actual products, which is crucial for customer satisfaction.
• Model diversity: Using diverse models in terms of size, ethnicity, and gender not only promotes inclusivity but also helps a wider audience visualize how products might look on them.

This bridges the gap between online shopping and the in-store experience, leading to better customer satisfaction and lower return rates.

Improve Stay Time

Today’s consumers have short attention spans and if your products and other content don’t hold their attention, they aren’t effective. A high-quality, engaging website presentation can increase the viewers’ stay time, most often leading to a purchase. 

With photo post production and AI’s help, eComm stores can create lifestyle images and virtual try-ons to showcase their clothes in action. This allows viewers to see and envision how the product will look on themselves, keeping them engaged and allowing them to browse for more outfit ideas.

Séfr 

Séfr uses a minimalist aesthetic with clean backgrounds and high-quality close-up shot edits. Their product photos are highly retouched to show the rich textures and zoom-in details of the garments, making them visually captivating.  

They have also incorporated lifestyle elements and customized product recommendations based on customers’ past purchases and browsing history. These factors keep visitors engaged and further improve their stay time often leading to purchases. 

Professionalism in Every Service

When it comes to eCommerce, maintaining a high standard of quality and consistency across all editing techniques is important. This includes a detailed understanding of what each specific product category requires, from color correction to techniques like clipping path, image masking, ghost mannequin, image manipulation, and more. 

Professionals edit photos according to the size and format specifications of your website or medium, ensuring fast loading times and optimal display. They will also review each image and ensure proper alignment, centering, and cropping for a polished look.

Balmain

Balmain is a French luxury fashion house known for its bold and often dramatic designs, which bring attention through their photo post production skills. Here are some examples of photo photo post production techniques you might see on their website:

Balmain often uses color correction to create a specific mood for its images. This involves eliminating imperfections, and smoothing skin for a polished and flawless look. It often uses a cool color palette to create a more edgy look.  It sometimes removes backgrounds entirely or replaces them with something more dramatic. This makes the clothes the star of the show in a more dreamlike presentation. 

Meeting Deadlines on Time

New product lines and seasonal collections have specific launch dates. Delays in photo post production can postpone these launches, disrupt marketing campaigns, PR promotions, and create inconsistencies between marketing materials and product pages. This can lead to missed sales opportunities and hinder marketing efforts.

Outsourcing eCommerce photo post production services to professionals like PixelPhant helps you meet deadlines on time with accurate results. 

Photo Post Production x Photography

Hyperrealism 

This photography goes beyond traditional visual representation with detailed and ultra-high-definition images that often surpass what the human eye can see. Despite their realistic appearance, these images carry a surreal quality that evokes a sense of both reality and fantasy. 

Hyperreal photography makes extensive use of advanced post-processing techniques. These include HDR imaging, meticulous color grading, detailed sharpening, and noise reduction processes.

Monochromatic Contrast 

In 2024, high-contrast photography is grabbing attention with its bold, dramatic style. It simplifies images to basic elements interplaying with deep blacks to bright whites. 

Its ecommerce post production technique creates dramatic shadows and highlights, adding depth and dimension to the image. It emphasizes lighting style for products and material textures to stand out in the photos. 

Quiet Luxury

This trend moves away from the bold and flashy, embracing a minimalist approach that speaks through subtlety, as seen in brands like Evergreen, Vege Threads, and more. It is characterized by soft lighting, clean lines, and minimalist compositions. 

It finds a place in high-end product advertising, editorial shoots, and lifestyle photography, where it communicates exclusivity without the need for extravagance.

Analog Echoes

This style blends retro color palettes and classic designs from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s like film grain and lens flares to enhance the nostalgic feel. 

In ecommerce post production, colours are often muted or desaturated, and sepia or monochrome effects are used. The lighting often mimics softer, more diffused techniques and avoids harsh shadows and highlights. Moreover, post-processing can involve image manipulation techniques, such as manually aging photos with effects that simulate sun exposure, water damage, or chemical stains.

Who Needs To Outsource eCommerce Post Production?

You need to outsource eCommerce post production if you are:

An eCommerce Business Owner

If you are an eCommerce business owner, you must outsource your post-production work rather than grappling with Photoshop yourself. It gives you the time to focus on more things while promising better-looking product photos.

Photo Editing can bring consistency and professionalism to your images, helping you build a better brand and increase sales.

A Professional Photographer or Studio Manager

As a professional photographer or studio manager, your primary focus should be engaging with different photography projects. By outsourcing post-production, you free yourself from the time-consuming tasks of editing, correcting, and refining images.

A photo post-production company can skilfully enhance your photographs, allowing you to invest in other areas, like expanding and branding your studio.

A freelancer

If you’re a freelancer juggling tight client deadlines and multiple projects, there’s no need to edit thousands of images by yourself. Outsourcing photo post-production work can free up your time and let you focus on other essential deliverables,

Ending Thoughts

Image presentation is crucial in promoting products across platforms, from eCommerce websites to social media stores. They reflect your brand’s professionalism and attention to detail. 

Poor-quality images, slow website loading, bad presentation, and not meeting the turnover time can undermine business growth right from the start. This is why investing in professional eCommerce post production is an essential yet successful growth solution for your business.